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Frank McCourt, civic entrepreneur, executive chairman of McCourt Global and founder of Project Liberty, speaks at the Wall Street Journal’s Future of Everything Festival in New York City on May 22, 2024.
Andrew Kelly | Reuters
Frank McCourt said his Project Liberty consortium, which made an offer to buy TikTokwould be comfortable sharing the ownership of the app as long as it is hosted on the technology developed by its profit.
“I agree with everything that is legal … and the U.S. government agrees,” McCourt told CNBC in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
McCourt’s remarks come after President Donald Trump last week he said that he wanted the United States to have a “50% ownership position in a joint venture” in TikTok.
The Supreme Court last week uphold the law demanding that ByteDance cede its ownership of TikTok or face an effective ban. Since TikTok has not been sold since the law expired on Sunday, the app has been closed to US users and has also been removed from the App Store by Apple and Google. But TikTok began restoring some services on Sunday after Trump said he would sign an executive order to delay a federal ban on the app, which he did on Monday.
The executive order allows TikTok to continue operating for another 75 days.
With all the twists and turns, McCourt said he is open to any business deal, including a 50% stake rather than full ownership.
“I’m not going to be the decision maker here. You know, this is President Trump’s deal now he’s in his … administration, and you know, everything will be resolved,” McCourt said.
“We’re not flexible about the values and principles of Project Liberty, are we?” he added. “We are totally flexible about business deals, as long as they respect the law.”
McCourt’s condition is that TikTok must run on technology called the Decentralized Social Network Protocol, or DSNP, which is overseen by the Project Liberty Institute, the nonprofit founded by the billionaire.
Focus on user data
McCourt has been a critic of the way social media and Internet companies collect user data and target them with ads. He said that this current model, where the user has little control over his data, must change.
DSNP is focused on making these changes. The protocol is a technology that third-party developers can build apps on top of, but users are able to choose how their data is used and who has access to it.
If they don’t like a particular app, they can migrate its content and data to another service built on top of the DSNP.
McCourt’s goal is to buy TikTok and put it on the DSNP.
“The user experience would be very similar, with the one big exception – owning your identity and your data and your relationships would be very different from how Tiktok currently operates,” said McCourt.
“So if Project Liberty, or someone else… buys Tiktok US and it does a poor job, the underlying technology will allow the entire user base to go to a different app that does a better job,” he added.
Project Liberty has proposed to buy TikTok without its core algorithm.
Project Libertà is “not interested in the algorithm or Chinese technology”, McCourt said, although he admitted that TikTok “is worth less” without the algorithm. Many experts have said that the success of TikTok is largely due to its algorithm, which keeps users attached to the app.
Other shoppers wander around
It is unclear whether ByteDance will sell TikTok or whether China will agree to any kind of sale of the app in the United States.
Project Liberty organizes the offer for TikTok with a consortium of other investors. It’s being dubbed the People’s Bid for TikTok, but there are other potential buyers circling.
Trump said on Tuesday that he would consider the possibility of Tesla CEO Elon Musk o Oracle The president Larry Ellison buy TikTok. Comments will come later a report that the Chinese government considered a plan involving Musk acquiring the operations.
The YouTube star MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, with a group of investors is also preparing to make an offer for TikTok, his lawyer confirmed this week to various media.
— CNBC’s Jonathan Vanian, Hakyung Kim and Lora Kolodny contributed to this report.
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