Frank McCourt, citizen entrepreneur, executive chairman of McCourt Global and founder of Project Liberty, speaks at the Wall Street Journal Future of Everything Festival in New York City, United States, on May 22, 2024.
Andrew Kelly | Reuters
Billionaires in race to buy TikTok Frank McCourt Investors are being offered the opportunity to create a new platform that gives users control over their data.
“I don’t want to own TikTok,” he told reporters on Thursday. “I don’t want to be the CEO of a social media platform. I want a new internet. A new and improved alternative.”
McCourt’s measure comes as concerns about online data privacy and children’s safety have led to dozens of bills at the state level and a bipartisan push for federal legislation.
His speech appealed to a key group: parents whose children have died as a result of being exposed to social media or being bullied on various platforms.
“Once Frank builds the infrastructure and the public figures out there’s a safer way, a more profitable way, then people will start coming,” said Sam Chapman, who said his Son Sammy died of a fentanyl overdose after purchasing the drug. Snapshot.
Chapman said McCourt’s vision would appeal to “hundreds of thousands of parents” who are seeking a safer Internet for their children.
As a business executive and philanthropist, McCourt has spent years advocating for a new internet in which users’ data belongs to them. He founded a non-profit organization free plan Build a healthier version of social media. The Freedom Project is working with Guggenheim Securities and law firm Kirkland & Ellis LLP Buy a viral video platform.
McCourt said he has also been approached by a number of potential investors, including pension funds, charities, academia and private investors.
TikTok parent company ByteDance has repeatedly said they will not sell the app and has filed a lawsuit to block a new law that would require the app to either find a new buyer by early next year or be banned in the United States
McCourt said he believes the company will be sold if the court rules against ByteDance. He said that because his team was primarily interested in TikTok’s community rather than the app’s powerful algorithm, they were “non-threatening buyers.”
“We bet they’re going to sell,” McCourt said. “Because remember, there’s a lot of American capital invested,” he said. “Are they going to wipe it all out?”
Another group seeking to acquire TikTok is led by former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who said earlier this year that he was building an investor group for a potential acquisition.
Asked about rival bids, McCourt noted that Mnuchin’s private equity firm has ties to Saudi money.
“If you replace Chinese money with Saudi money, what problem is solved here?” McCourt said. “It’s the same pattern of exploitation, scraping everyone’s data, aggregating it and making money and harming children.”
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