Ex-Activision CEO Bobby Kotick Reportedly Wants To Buy TikTok
Congress is voting on a bill that could force ByteDance to sell TikTok or risk a ban in the US.
Bobby Kotick, the former CEO of Activision, is apparently interested in buying TikTok. Kotick has approached ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming about a potential sale if the company moves to sell it, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The news arrives amid a proposed US bill called the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which was described the Energy and Commerce Committee as “bipartisan legislation that will protect Americans by preventing foreign adversaries, like the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), from targeting, surveilling and manipulating the American people through applications, like TikTok.”
If passed, the bill would require TikTok to be divested from its parent company through a sale to a new owner or face being banned in the US.
According to WSJ, a potential sale of TikTok is “estimated to be in the hundreds of billions of dollars, which would require Kotick to go in on the app with a few other partners. The newspaper reports that Kotick raised the matter at a dinner for the boutique investment bank Allen & Co.
Among the investors he’s reportedly pitched is OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Kotick apparently told Altman that he could use TikTok to train AI models if a sale takes place.
The bill that would force TikTok’s sale received a 50-0 vote within the Committee last week. Congress is expected to vote on the bill on Wednesday and it will require a two-thirds majority to pass.
