The entrepreneur who wants to buy TikTok
Marketplace Tech
American Public Media
4.6 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 18 December 2024
⏱️ 11 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
About 170 million U.S. users could be TikTokless as soon as Jan. 19. Early this month, a federal appeals court upheld a law that could ban the very popular short-form video app unless its Chinese owners agree to sell it. They have a willing buyer, though, in billionaire Frank McCourt, who has assembled a consortium of investors ready to put down more than $20 billion. He’s the founder of the internet reform initiative Project Liberty. You may also know him as a real estate developer who once owned the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hey everybody, it's Kai. We've got a midweek deal that you don't want to miss. |
| 0:04.7 | Thanks to the generosity of Marketplace investors across the country, all gifts will be matched today up to $30,000. |
| 0:11.7 | Don't delay. Give right now and double your impact. It's really that easy to become a Marketplace investor and power public service journalism. |
| 0:19.5 | Go to Marketplace.org slash donate, and your gift will go twice as far, but only today. |
| 0:25.2 | That's Marketplace.org slash donate, and thanks. A Billionaire's bit to buy TikTok. |
| 0:45.0 | From American Public Media, this is Marketplace Tech. |
| 0:48.8 | I'm Megan McCarty Carrino. A hundred seventy million users in the U.S. could be TikTok-less as soon as January 19th. |
| 1:07.5 | A federal appeals court upheld a law that could ban the short form video app unless its Chinese owners agree to sell it. |
| 1:15.5 | Well, they have a willing buyer in the billionaire Frank McCourt, who has assembled a consortium of investors ready to put down more than $20 billion. |
| 1:25.9 | McCourt is the founder of the Internet Reform Initiative Project |
| 1:29.4 | Liberty. You may also know him as a real estate developer who once owned the Los Angeles Dodgers. |
| 1:35.4 | We have our proof of concept, and now it's a matter of scale. Obviously, 170 million people |
| 1:41.6 | migrating over to this new platform would actually achieve that scale, |
| 1:46.1 | and we'd have an alternative internet that we all could choose to use, one that didn't surveil us |
| 1:51.1 | and scrape our data. We're assembling the capital for the bid to be in a position to buy |
| 1:57.7 | the U.S. platform if Bight Dance decides to sell it. And now we're just waiting to see how |
| 2:04.0 | the process plays out. January 19th is coming very soon. We're really at the moment where we're |
| 2:12.4 | waiting to see whether or not Bight Dance chooses to sell, in which case it could be granted a three-month extension |
| 2:18.9 | or whether they just shut the platform down on the 19th of January. |
| 2:23.8 | So obviously there are a lot of moving parts in kind of the legal picture, |
| 2:28.6 | but what is your pitch to TikTok's parent company BiteDance? |
| 2:32.5 | Why should they want to sell to you? Well, because, you know, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from American Public Media, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of American Public Media and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.