Frank McCourt to Lead Consortium Bid for TikTok's US Arm

Billionaire Frank McCourt, known for his previous ownership of the Los Angeles Dodgers, is leading a consortium through his non-profit, Project Liberty, to bid for the U.S. operations of the social media platform TikTok. This action follows a U.S. law requiring ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of TikTok, to divest its U.S. assets by January 19 or face a potential ban, amid national security concerns that China could access or surveil American user data.

The consortium, supported by Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web, and David Clark, a senior research scientist at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, includes partnerships with Guggenheim Securities and law firm Kirkland & Ellis. The bid is part of an initiative to shift TikTok to an open-source digital protocol, which aims to provide U.S. users with more control over their information and to maintain the platform's user experience while enhancing data security.

Project Liberty has previously launched an open-source Decentralized Social Networking Protocol and is collaborating with a network of academic institutions and civic organizations to develop digital infrastructure. The consortium's proposal is not only a response to legislative actions but also a step towards creating a more open, inclusive, and responsible internet, with a shared social graph that is independent of specific applications or centralized platforms.