TikTok shortly before US ban: How a billionaire wants to save the app

A ban in the USA is getting closer and closer for TikTok: The Chinese parent company ByteDance has until January 19th to sell the short video app. Otherwise the platform, which is particularly popular with young people, will be blocked in the USA.

A major critic of social media is seriously interested: the American entrepreneur Frank McCourt. “We look forward to working with TikTok parent ByteDance, President-elect Donald Trump and the new administration to complete this deal,” he said in early January.

A consortium he formed is about to submit an official offer. The 71-year-old did not provide any information about the amount of the planned offer. According to previous information, he has received funding commitments totaling $20 billion.

However, McCourt is clear about his plans for the controversial video platform: He wants to transform TikTok into a “new and better version of the Internet in which individuals are respected and own and control their identity and data.”

McCourt comes from a family that has been in real estate and construction in the Boston area for generations. He studied economics at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. After graduating, he worked in his father’s road construction company.

In 1977, he founded The McCourt Company, which specialized in the development of large commercial real estate projects. The company has been called McCourt Global since 2013. Frank McCourt has been its executive chairman since 2023; he was previously the company’s CEO.

Buying TikTok wouldn’t be the first typical purchase for a billionaire: In 2004, McCourt acquired the majority stake in the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team for $430 million. He appointed his then wife and later US ambassador Jamie McCourt as the club’s board member.

McCourt’s time as Dodgers owner ended in 2012 with the team’s bankruptcy. In 2011, Major League Baseball (MLB) took over the Dodgers’ operations and launched an investigation into McCourt’s management. There was “great concern about the finances and operations” of the team, which soon filed for bankruptcy and was sold for $2 billion.

Then in 2016, McCourt bought French soccer club Olympique Marseille for $45 million. In 2021 he wrote a guest article in which he spoke out against the European Super League in his role as owner of Olympique Marseille. His criticism of the opaque centralization of power in football also applies to the tech industry, said McCourt.

McCourt has been committed to a better internet and the use of digital technology for the good of people – not for profit – for several years. To this end, he founded the non-profit initiative Project Liberty in 2021. McCourt committed $100 million to develop technologies that serve the public good.

He apparently pursues the same goal with the purchase of TikTok. He told the medium Semafor: “TikTok presents the best and the worst of the internet. It connects 170 million people and enables them to be creative, create and enjoy,” said McCourt. “On the other hand, they have no real share in the value creation, and their data is intercepted, stolen and shipped to China.”

In his 2024 book Our Biggest Fight, McCourt makes his criticism of modern digital technologies even harsher: “Like poor, powerless subjects of monarchs and aristocrats, we are serfs, subjugated by a small group of companies that have exploited a feudal Internet architecture. “

How exactly he wants to convert TikTok is still unclear. But projects like Project Liberty and his public statements suggest that the changes will be fundamental.

The legal deadline for selling TikTok expires on January 19th. It can be extended by three months if incumbent US President Joe Biden considers that the transaction is nearing completion. Even if parent company ByteDance finds a buyer for TikTok in the coming days, it remains unclear whether the Chinese government would agree to such a deal.

According to insiders, ByteDance would rather close down than sell. Experts also believe it is impossible that the company would reveal the algorithms that, among other things, suggest new clips to users as part of such a deal. They fall under technologies whose export requires state approval from the government in Beijing. Without these algorithms, the video platform would be worth significantly less than it is currently.

ByteDance wants to get a reprieve from the Supreme Court. Last Friday, the US Supreme Court held a hearing on the matter. Among other things, the question was whether the law on the change of ownership violated the constitutionally guaranteed right to freedom of speech. The judges responsible are expected to decide on the case in the coming days. If the law remains in its current form, the ban would come into force one day before Donald Trump’s second US presidency.