Biglaw

World's Wealthiest Law Firm Working On Bid To Buy TikTok

Tapping the big guns to get this bid off the ground.

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TikTok and Facebook application on screen Apple iPhone XRByteDance certainly doesn’t *want* to sell the wildly popular app TikTok. However, the United States actually got over its partisan dysfunction to pass a “divest or ban” law, so they might not have much of a choice. That is, if the legal challenges fail.

Frank McCourt (the billionaire former Los Angles Dodgers owner, not the Angela’s Ashes author) is working on a bid to buy Gen Z’s social media of choice. In an announcement, McCourt revealed that he’s working in consultation with Guggenheim Securities and Kirkland & Ellis to put together “a people’s bid” for TikTok.

McCourt has long been an opponent of big tech, and created Project Liberty to mobilize that resistance. The project is defined as “a movement of people who want to take back control of their lives in the digital age by reclaiming a voice, choice, and stake in a better internet.” Lofty goals indeed. And McCourt’s statements about the bid to buy TikTok are in line with his espoused values, “We see this potential acquisition as an incredible opportunity to catalyze an alternative to the current tech model that has colonized the internet.”

He continued:

“By bringing leading academics, technologists, behavioral scientists, psychologists and economic experts together with community partners, parents and citizens, we believe we can preserve — and enhance — the TikTok experience 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.”

That’s likely encouraging for users of the platform.

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Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Mastodon @Kathryn1@mastodon.social.

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