It's all hands on deck at TikTok HQ, and with the Doomsday Clock at one minute to midnight, the popular short-form video app could be banned in America in just a number of days. We've known that TikTok could be banned in the U.S. since the United States Army and Navy banned it on government devices in January 2020. As members of Congress have continued to raise concerns that the Chinese-owned ByteDance might be spying on us through TikTok, March 2024 saw the United States House of Representatives pass H.R. 7521, known as the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act.
ByteDance was warned that TikTok would be banned in America unless it sold its U.S. operations to a non-Chinese entity.
The January 19 deadline is looming, and with the Supreme Court looking like it will slam down the ban hammer, there's a last-minute scramble to find a buyer.
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Even though it could be a case of too little, too late, some major tech powers are circling.
After Elon Musk was rumored to be TikTok's knight in shining armor, Jimmy "MrBeast" Donaldson has suggested he could also bring TikTok back from the brink of being banned.
While Musk is the richest man in the world and his reported net worth of $420 billion far exceeds Donaldson's apparent $1 billion, MrBeast has still made an impressive sum as the most-subscribed channel on YouTube.
With analysts previously claiming TikTok's U.S. operations could be worth up to $50 billion, MrBeast is far short of having enough money to buy it outright. Then again, Musk took out some hefty loans to buy Twitter (now known as X) in 2022. Elsewhere, Canadian investor and Shark Tank's Kevin O'Leary, aka Mr. Wonderful, has also suggested he might be interested.
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In the aftermath of the Musk rumors, MrBeast took to X and wrote: "Okay fine, I’ll buy Tik Tok so it doesn’t get banned."
Both Musk and Donaldson are divisive characters, although MrBeast definitely feels like he fits the demographic of TikTok more than Musk. The problem is, we can't tell if he's joking about a potential purchase. We won't pretend to understand the logistics of buying TikTok's U.S. operations, but we doubt it'd happen before January 19.
Others in the comments were split by the idea of MrBeast buying TikTok, with someone saying: "Better than Elon buying it."
Another added: "You don’t want to p*ss off YouTube. They would likely destroy your algorithm reach if you owned their competitor. It would be a risk.
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"What if YouTube overtakes TikTok? Also you would have to get quite the loan, and involve venture capital investors. It could be the right move… what do I know? 🤷♀️"
Someone else concluded: "I think Mr. Wonderful and Elon beat you to it, but you guys should all just partner together. Make it the Instagram version of the X platform where you can post on X at the same time, like how Facebook and Instagram cross over.
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"There is a lot of potential to grow, and start-up companies explode on there, and it helps people be creative on that platform. It's like the as seen on TV of social media platforms and more 😆"
Interestingly, the official Kick X account replied and said: "50/50? Kick Tok has a nice ring to it."
The comments were filled with plenty of jokes about Donaldson giving away TikTok to one lucky subscriber (echoing the formula of many of his popular videos), and while many remain unconvinced that MrBeast could even find the funds to buy TikTok, this could turn into a bidding war between some of the tech industry's biggest names.