MrBeast, the YouTube star and top-earning creator on the internet, has officially joined a bid to buy TikTok’s US operations.
The 26-year-old has teamed up with tech entrepreneur Jesse Tinsley, founder of online human resources company employer.com, to make an all-cash bid for the US unit of the social video app. The approach was announced when Donald Trump said he was open to American tech billionaires Elon Musk and Larry Ellison buying TikTok in the United States.
MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, has expressed interest in acquiring TikTok in several social media posts. writing in X on January 13: “I will buy TikTok so they don’t ban it.” in a subsequent TikTok post Donaldson said he had been talking to a “group of billionaires” about an offer.
The American law firm Paul Hastings announced Donaldson’s offer in a statement on Tuesday. He said Tinsley led an investor group made up of “institutional investors and high-net-worth individuals,” but Donaldson was the only publicly named member of the group.
The statement did not reveal the size of the cash offer, although Trump put a value of $1 trillion (£811 billion) on the app on Tuesday. According to Forbes, MrBeast, who has 346 million followers on YouTube, was the most successful internet creator in the world last year. earning 85 million dollars.
Paul Hastings added that the lawyer leading the team advising on the candidacy was Brad Bondi, brother of Pam Bondi, Trump’s pick to be US attorney general.
The president of the United States also proposed an agreement with Musk, the richest person in the world, or Ellison, the billionaire founder of Oracle and the fourth richest person in the world. At a press conference on Tuesday, Trump said he was open to Musk making an offer, adding: “I would be if I wanted to buy him. I would like Larry (Ellison) to buy it too.”
Ellison, who was present at the news conference, said it seemed like a “good deal.” Trump said TikTok was worth $1 trillion with a “permit” to operate in the United States, with less than 50% American ownership.
TikTok’s future in the United States remains uncertain even though the app became available again on Sunday after its Beijing-based owner, ByteDance, briefly shut down the service. TikTok was forced to act before a Jan. 19 deadline for its Chinese parent to sell off the app’s U.S. unit or face a de facto ban.
However, he reinstated the app after receiving “assurances” from Trump, who then issued an executive order on Monday suspending enforcement of a law requiring the sale of TikTok. The law prohibited companies like Apple, Google or Oracle from distributing or maintaining the app (effectively preventing it from functioning) if ByteDance had not completed a sale by January 19.
Some Republican lawmakers have already questioned the legality of suspending the law, saying companies affected by the legislation must comply with it and anyone who violates it faces “ruinous bankruptcy.” Reuters reported that Apple and Google had not reinstated the app in their app stores as of Tuesday.
TikTok, Google and Apple have been contacted for comment.