MrBeast says billionaires are in his DMs looking to finance TikTok purchase
TikTok may have a new knight in shining armor, and it’s not just some wealthy businessman.
Well, sort of.
MrBeast announced his intention to step in and save TikTok. The immensely popular content creator (and wealthy businessman), whose real name is James Donaldson, announced his plan to buy the site this week.
He later added that talks to finance the purchase are being explored.
“Okay fine, I’ll buy Tik Tok so it doesn’t get banned,” he tweeted on Monday night.
That post has been viewed nearly 18 million times.
On Tuesday, he shared an update, saying billionaires had reached out to him since he made his announcement.
“Unironically I’ve had so many billionaires reach out to me since I tweeted this, let’s see if we can pull this off,” he wrote.
Given his history of viral stunts, users on X aren’t taking it too seriously, with one echoing the tone of his YouTube videos: “I just bought TikTok and I’m giving it away to one lucky subscriber.”
Can MrBeast afford to buy TikTok?
On TikTok, many also seemed to doubt his ability to actually buy the Chinese-owned app, not without investors willing to help.
As one put it, he is "nowhere near rich enough."
That’s probably true, being just a few tens of billions of dollars short.
In 2023, Forbes estimated MrBeast was worth around $500 million. The absurdly popular short-video app is valued at $40-50 billion, all without its prized algorithm.
With a potential ban looming on Jan. 19, TikTok is running out of time, though not necessarily out of options.
China—which has final say on the sale—is reportedly considering selling to Elon Musk, who is much richer than MrBeast, according to a Jan. 14 report from Bloomberg.
TikTok denied the veracity of the report.
There is also a $20 billion bid reportedly from Project Liberty, which is being headed by billionaire and former Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt.
Without any sale, TikTok will get banned, following a 2024 law passed under the Biden administration that is forcing TikTok’s parent company ByteDance to divest its U.S. operations amid national security concerns.
The Supreme Court is currently mulling whether to enforce the ban or give President-elect Donald Trump more time to find a solution.
But even if it were just a stunt tweet, users said they would prefer this over another social media empire owned by Musk, who used his purchase of Twitter in 2022 to lobby and tweet his way into President-elect Donald Trump’s inner circle.
“If you do," replied one, “please do it with anyone but Musk or Zuckerberg. They have enough platforms to run and influence.”
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