Frank McCourt, citizen entrepreneur, executive chairman of McCourt Global and founder of Project Liberty, speaks at the WSJ Future of Everything Festival on May 22, 2024 in New York City.
Andrew Kelly | Reuters
Frank McCourt said his Freedom Project consortium Bid has been made to acquire TikTokhe would happily share ownership of the app as long as it was hosted on technology developed by his nonprofit.
“I’m okay with anything that’s legal… and the U.S. government is okay with it,” McCourt told CNBC in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
McCourt’s comments come after President Donald Trump said last week He wants the United States to have “50% ownership of a joint venture” in TikTok.
Supreme Court last week uphold the law Demand ByteDance divests ownership of TikTok or face effective ban. After TikTok was not sold by a legally mandated Sunday deadline, the app has been closed to U.S. users and removed from the Apple and Google app stores. But Douyin Some services will resume on Sunday Trump said on Monday he would sign an executive order delaying a federal ban on the app.
The executive order allows TikTok to continue operating for another 75 days.
Despite the twists and turns, McCourt said he is open to any business deal, including a 50 percent stake rather than full ownership.
“I’m not going to be the decision-maker there. You know, this was President Trump’s deal and it’s now in his… administration and, you know, it’s all going to be worked out,” McCourt said.
“We’re not flexible about the values ​​and principles of the Freedom Plan, are we?” he added. “We are fully flexible on commercial arrangements as long as they comply with the law.”
McCourt’s condition is that TikTok must run on a technology called the Decentralized Social Network Protocol (DSNP), which was developed by the billionaire-founded nonprofit Project Liberty. Institute) supervision.
Follow user data
McCourt has been critical of the way social media and online companies collect data about users and target them with ads. He said the current model, in which users have little control over their data, needs to change.
DSNP is committed to making these changes. The protocol is a technology that third-party developers can build apps on top of, but users can choose how their data is used and who has access to it.
If they don’t like a particular application, they can migrate their content and materials to another service built on top of DSNP.
McCourt’s goal is to acquire TikTok and incorporate it into DSNP.
“The user experience will be very similar, with one big exception – having your identity, your data and your relationships will be very different from how Tiktok currently operates,” McCourt said.
“So if Project Liberty or anyone else… buys TikTok in the U.S. and it doesn’t perform well, the underlying technology will allow the entire user base to move to other apps that perform better,” he added.
Project Liberty bid to acquire TikTok without its core algorithm.
McCourt said the Freedom Project “is not interested in algorithms or Chinese technology,” although he acknowledged that without algorithms, TikTok would be “less valuable.” Many experts say TikTok’s success is largely due to its algorithm, which keeps users hooked on the app.
Other buyers are coming
It’s unclear whether ByteDance will sell TikTok or if China will agree to sell the app in any form in the United States
Project Liberty is organizing a bid for TikTok with a consortium of other investors. It’s been dubbed “The People’s Bid for TikTok,” but there are other potential buyers vying for the win.
Trump said on Tuesday he would consider Tesla CEO Musk or Oracle President Larry Ellison Buy TikTok. After the comments come a report The Chinese government has considered a plan involving Musk acquiring these businesses.
Lawyers for YouTube star MrBeast (real name Jimmy Donaldson) confirmed to multiple media outlets this week that he and a group of investors are also preparing to bid for TikTok.
—CNBC’s Jonathan Vanian, Hakyung Kim and Lora Kolodny contributed to this report.
