This week, two businessmen already disclosed their intention to purchase Chinese video content platform, TikTok.
These men are American businessman Bobby Kotick, former chief executive officer of videogame publisher Activision and Canadian businessman Terrence Thomas Kevin O’Leary, investor, journalist, and television personality.
Former president Donald Trump was the one who initially tried to get ByteDance to sell TikTok. Legal actions have halted wider attempts to ban TikTok from government-owned devices, but lawmakers have already banned it.
Officials in Joe Biden’s administration appear to have concluded that TikTok is still a danger to national security. However, they are unsure if they have the power to ban the app or cut ties with its Chinese owner. The White House hopes to gain more control with the new TikTok bill.
There has been no resolution to the long-running dispute between TikTok and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, an executive-branch panel, regarding the company’s ability to stay in the country.
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About Kotick’s intention
A source close to the matter said that Bobby Kotick had shown interest in Zhang Yiming, co-founder of ByteDance. Sources have put the figure in the hundreds of billions of dollars. During a dinner at an Allen & Co. conference earlier this week, Kotick reportedly brought up the possibility of a partnership to acquire TikTok to a table where OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was also present.
If a business partner like Kotick could secure the necessary funds, experts think OpenAI could acquire TikTok and use it to train its artificial intelligence models. This follows recent legislation introduced by the House of Representatives that would force ByteDance, the parent company based in Beijing, to sell off its shares in TikTok or risk having the app removed from U.S. app stores and web hosting platforms.
There is a belief that the Chinese government could use the app to spy on US citizens and access their personal data, which is why this bill was introduced. The US government is introducing the bill in the hopes that it will stop China from stealing American data and spreading its propaganda abroad.
About O’Leary’s intention
Legislators are about to vote on whether or not to take legislative action against the TikTok app, which China owns. One of the most powerful entrepreneurs in the United States has offered to buy and host the platform on American soil.
In order to start a new business in the United States, Kevin O’Leary plans to buy these assets. He promises that the servers are located in the United States. In order to make the code secure for American users, parents, small businesses, and large corporations, he plans to seal the Chinese backdoors.
After passing out of a bipartisan committee with a perfect score of 50-0, potential legislation that would ban TikTok in the US is supposedly scheduled to be voted on Wednesday in the House of Representatives.
The bill threatens to ban TikTok’s apps unless ByteDance, the Chinese parent company, completely divests all of them within 180 days. Furthermore, it would lay the groundwork for future application bans by the executive branch in the event that they pose a security risk.
“Speak up now – before your government strips 170 million Americans of their constitutional right to free expression.” The app’s developers sent a personalised message to TikTok users, urging them to contact their local lawmakers after the app gained strong bipartisan support.
O’Leary stated his intention to collaborate with bill-supporting Republicans and Democrats in order to facilitate his 18-month ownership transition of TikTok.
Since the Chinese people will be in a passive and non-controlling role, O’Leary proposes leaving 20 to 30 percent of control to them. The board will remain under their control. They will handle this matter pertaining to free speech since they will not have any say in the company’s operations. He made the comment that nobody wants the app to be lost.
O’Leary went on to say that he would be fine with the congressional board possibly not sharing profits with ByteDance, the parent company. The point is that the Chinese people own a lot of cooperative businesses, and everyone knows that any Chinese company is actually owned by the CCP. For this reason, the Chinese government actively supports American manufacturing firms through a number of joint ventures. Let’s be kind to them.