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Frank McCourt, civic entrepreneur, CEO 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 has offered to buy TikTokYou would be comfortable sharing ownership of the app as long as it is hosted on technology developed by your nonprofit.
“I agree with anything that is legal… and the United States government agrees,” McCourt told CNBC in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
McCourt’s comments come after President Donald Trump. last week he said that he would like the United States to have a “50% joint venture interest” in TikTok.
The Supreme Court last week kept the law demand ByteDance to divest its ownership of TikTok or face an effective ban. Since TikTok was not sold by Sunday’s deadline, the app was closed to American users and also removed from the Apple and Google app stores. But Tik Tok It 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 one making the decisions there. You know, this is President Trump’s deal now that he’s in his… administration, and you know, everything will be worked out,” McCourt said.
“We’re not flexible about the values and principles of Project Freedom, are we?” he added. “We are totally flexible when it comes to trade agreements, as long as they respect the law.”
McCourt’s condition is that TikTok must run on technology called Decentralized Social Networking Protocol, or DSNP, which is overseen by Project Liberty Institute, the nonprofit founded by the billionaire.
Focus on user data
McCourt has criticized the way internet and social media companies collect user data and serve them ads. You have said that this current model, where the user has little control over their own data, needs to change.
DSNP is focused on making those changes. The protocol is a technology that third-party developers can build applications on, but users can 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 in the DSNP.
The “user experience would be very similar, with one big exception: owning your identity, your data, and your relationships would be quite different than how Tiktok currently operates,” McCourt said.
“So if Project Liberty, or anyone else… buys American Tiktok and does a bad job, the underlying technology will allow that entire user base to go to a different app that’s doing a better job,” he added.
Project Liberty has bid to buy TikTok without its core algorithm.
Project Liberty 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 TikTok’s success is largely due to its algorithm, which keeps users hooked on the app.
Other shoppers hanging around
It’s unclear whether ByteDance will sell TikTok or whether China will agree to some type of sale of the app in the US.
Project Liberty is organizing the bid for TikTok with a consortium of other investors. It’s known as the people’s deal for TikTok, but there are other potential buyers floating around.
Trump said Tuesday that he would consider tesla executive director Elon Musk either Oracle President Larry Ellison buying TikTok. The comments come later. a report that the Chinese government has considered a plan that would involve Musk acquiring the operations.
YouTube star MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, along with a group of investors is also preparing to make a bid for TikTok, his lawyer confirmed to several media outlets this week.
— CNBC’s Jonathan Vanian, Hakyung Kim and Lora Kolodny contributed to this report.
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