Amazon, OnlyFans founder make bids for TikTok: | Australian Markets
Amazon has put in a bid to buy TikTok, a US administration official says, in an eleventh-hour pitch as a United States ban on the platform is set to enter impact.
The official, who was not authorised to remark publicly and spoke on the situation of anonymity, stated the Amazon offer was made in a letter to US Vice President JD Vance and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
The New York Times first reported on the bid.
A startup run by Tim Stokely, founder of grownup content material social media website OnlyFans, stated on Wednesday it had partnered with a cryptocurrency basis to submit its own plan to accumulate TikTok.
The intent to bid was despatched this week to the White House by Zoop, billionaire Stokely’s new company, and the Hbar Foundation, which manages the Hedera cryptocurrency community’s treasury.
While OnlyFans is understood primarily for pornography, Zoop is mainstream and family-friendly, and provides back the bulk of its income to those that post on the positioning, rewarding them for driving up consumer engagement.
“Our bid for TikTok isn’t just about changing ownership, it’s about creating a new paradigm where both creators and their communities benefit directly from the value they generate,” Zoop co-founder RJ Phillips instructed Reuters.
The companions have been working with a consortium of traders, Phillips stated.
He declined to supply particulars on the bid or the traders backing it.
US President Donald Trump on Inauguration Day gave the platform a reprieve, barrelling previous a law that had been upheld unanimously by the Supreme Court, which stated the ban was essential for national security.
Under the law, TikTok’s Chinese-owned mother or father company ByteDance is required to promote the platform to an permitted purchaser or take it offline within the United States.
Trump has prompt he might additional prolong the pause on the ban however he has additionally stated he expects a deal to be cast by Saturday.
Amazon declined to remark.
The existence of an Amazon bid surfaced as Trump was scheduled on Wednesday to satisfy with senior officers to debate the approaching deadline – Saturday – for a TikTok sale.
Both the FBI and the Federal Communications Commission have warned that ByteDance might share consumer knowledge – similar to searching historical past, location and biometric identifiers – with China’s authoritarian authorities.
TikTok stated it has by no means accomplished that and wouldn’t achieve this if requested.
The US authorities has not supplied proof of that occuring.
Trump has thousands and thousands of followers on TikTok and has credited the trendsetting platform with serving to him gain traction amongst younger voters.
During his first time period, he took a more sceptical view of TikTok and issued government orders banning dealings with ByteDance in addition to the house owners of the Chinese messaging app WeChat.
with Reuters
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