Alexis Ohanian joins bid to buy TikTok before U.S. ban deadline

A new name has joined in the efforts to buy TikTok and keep it running in the U.S.

According to Reuters, venture capitalist Alexis Ohanian, the co-founder of Reddit, is joining businessman Frank McCourt in his bid to buy TikTok in the U.S.

“He has that broad portfolio of experience … of where social media was and, I think, a keen understanding of where it’s evolving,” McCourt told Reuters.

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In a post on his Instagram Stories, Ohanian screenshot the Reuters story and wrote “Ready to buy TikTok US and bring on chain 🗽”

“Where he can help mostly is validating but also socializing what we’re doing,” McCourt told Reuters. “On the one hand, this is a project which has very sophisticated technology at the core, and so you’re dealing with a very specific audience when it comes to demonstrating the validity of that technology and in how it works, and why it’s necessary.”

McCourt is the founder of Project Liberty, which offered ByteDance $20 billion in cash for what the group calls “The People’s Bid for TikTok.” Canadian investor and Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary is also in on the bid.

This comes at a time in which investors are fighting to get a piece of TikTok before the ban goes into effect. Of course, the Supreme Court decided to uphold then-president Joe Biden’s TikTok ban in a unanimous decision. Since then, President Donald Trump extended the period of time before the law goes into effect. Now, the app is running and back on app stores — at least, until Trump’s extension runs out on April 5. TikTok says it doesn’t want to sell, but the most likely way to stop a U.S. ban is for another company to step up and buy it.