Former Activision Boss Bobby Kotick Rumored To Be Involved In Buying TikTok
TikTok could have new owners in the future, as fomer Activision Blizzard boss Bobby Kotick has reportedly expressed interest in purchasing the social media platform. According to The Wall Street Journal, Kotick has approached ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming over a potential sale if the company agrees to sell it.
According to WSJ, such a sale is “estimated to be in the hundreds of billions of dollars” and Kotick would need to find partners to raise the necessary funds. One such partner could be Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, and its rumored that TikTok could be used to help train AI models for the company. Kotick also raised the idea at an Allen & Co dinner recently, to other interested parties. In 2020, Microsoft also expressed interest in acquiring TikTok, a move that saw the company’s value increase by $77 billion at the time.
TikTok finds itself in the crosshairs of a new US bill, the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which aims to “protect the national security of the United States from the threat posed by foreign adversary controlled applications”. TikTok and its owner ByteDance have long been considered a possible security risk to the US due to suspected links to the Chinese government, and under the new bill if it’s signed into law, ByteDance would be forced to sell the platform within six months or risk being banned in the US.