Billionaire entrepreneur and former Senate candidate Reid Rasner reportedly made an offer to buy TikTok from China.
Rasner, CEO of wealth management company Omnivest Financial, reportedly made an offer to Chinese company ByteDance for $47.45 billion.
Rasner told NBC News that the Donald Trump administration had already reviewed his offer and is “prepared to move forward” in an effort to Americanize the popular short-video platform.
“I think they’re taking it very seriously, from what it sounds like,” Rasner said last week. “There’s no holding back. The money isn’t the issue right now; bringing all the pieces together is the issue.”
Rasner’s home state of Wyoming is where he ran for a Senate seat in 2024, losing a primary to fellow Republican incumbent Senator John Barrasso by about 45,000 votes. Barrasso won re-election with a massive victory in November and garnered over 75% of the vote.
On his campaign website, Rasner categorized himself as “America First” and championed values such as “hard work, self-reliance, and a commitment to freedom,” while opposing “globalist policies.”
Under Rasner’s proposed plan, TikTok would allow investment tiers for Americans to buy in to the platform as “founding members.”
The increments start from $280 per year and go up to $12,000 per year, providing perks like boosts to reach and verification badges. A similar method for procuring investments (with rewards) was used by the social media platform Minds when it was launched in 2015.
The entrepreneur stated, however, that “TikTok will always be free” but that if enterprises or large corporations want to use TikTok, they can buy their way into being able to “go viral more often.”
‘We have a lot of potential buyers.’
Rasner also reportedly wants to move TikTok’s headquarters, currently in Los Angeles and Singapore, to his home state of Wyoming.
The billionaire went on to claim that the potential acquisition “is about the American people.”
“This is about bringing TikTok to America. I’m going to fight for that day in and day out,” Rasner added.
President Trump recently commented on the potential acquisition from ByteDance, which he believed would be completed before his April 5 deadline.
“We have a lot of potential buyers,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One. “There’s tremendous interest in TikTok,” the president added, per Reuters.
“I’d like to see Tiktok remain alive.”
Rasner reportedly has not heard back from ByteDance about his offer, stating that “negotiations are complex.”
The CEO’s team has hired global acquisitions firm Goodwin Procter to help with the offer, NBC reported.
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Return, Tiktok, Social media, Trump, Wyoming, Tech
