Billionaire McCourt Forming Group to Buy TikTok

Billionaire Frank McCourt is organizing a consortium to buy TikTok’s U.S. business. McCourt, who founded Project Liberty and is a real estate mogul and former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, said Wednesday he’s organizing a bid with investment bank Guggenheim Securities. TikTok’s parent ByteDance said previously it has no plans to sell (see 2404260039). President Joe Biden recently signed a law requiring ByteDance to divest TikTok in order for the social media app to continue operating in the U.S. McCourt said the consortium wants to pair “academics, technologists, behavioral scientists, psychologists and economic experts” with “community partners, parents and citizens” to preserve and enhance TikTok by “giving individuals and creators on the platform the value and control they deserve regarding who has access to their data and how it is used.”