Georgetown University could find itself at least partially involved in a long-shot bid to acquire TikTok's U.S. operations from the social media platform's China-based parent company ByteDance.
On Wednesday, billionaire investor, developer, tech critic and philanthropist Frank McCourt, a Georgetown alum and major financial supporter of the university, announced he had tasked his New York-based organization, Project Liberty, with building a consortium of investors to buy the American-based assets of the wildly popular video platform. McCourt tapped investment bank Guggenheim Securities for advice on an effort he's referred to as "the people’s bid," which would put TikTok on an open source platform should a deal be struck.
"We see this potential acquisition as an incredible opportunity to catalyze an alternative to the current tech model that has colonized the internet," McCourt, the former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers until its $2.15 billion sale in 2012, said in a statement.
TikTok's revenues in the U.S. hit $16 billion in 2023, according to the Financial Times, and its valuation hovers around the $100 billion mark.
McCourt's bid follows recently adopted federal legislation requiring ByteDance to sell its U.S.-based TikTok assets or shut down its operations in the U.S. completely. ByteDance has since sued the federal government over this mandate, which it claims violates the First Amendment. The company has said it does not intend to sell.
With a $500 million investment of his own capital, McCourt launched Project Liberty in 2019 as an entity that aims to advocate for more data controls benefiting social media users and others. To accomplish this, Project Liberty obtains various research and technology expertise from its Project Liberty Institute, a global nonprofit that counts Georgetown University, Stanford University and Sciences Po in Paris as its founding partners.
Georgetown University representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment as to its, or the Project Liberty Institute's, role in a TikTok bid. McCourt, executive chairman of investment firm McCourt Global, graduated from the school in 1975 and has become one of its top donors. He gave $100 million to the university in 2013 to establish the McCourt School of Public Policy and a second $100 million gift in 2021, half of which went to financial aid and scholarships.
McCourt is expected to rely on this institute and others as he pursues his bid, which he claims will deliver creators more control over the data they produce while using online services and platforms. The potential TikTok ban itself arose over concern that Americans' use of TikTok is a national security threat amid uncertainty as to how ByteDance uses the data it gathers — and the entities that have access to that information.
"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," McCourt said.
Pending a favorable resolution to its ongoing lawsuit, ByteDance has until Jan. 19, 2025, to sell its U.S. assets or face a ban. In March 2023, TikTok announced that 150 million Americans, about 45% of the country, use the platform.
