• The US Court of Appeals upheld a decision forcing the sale of TikTok to avoid banning it in the US.
• Several investors, philanthropists and tech giants are interested in buying the company.
• Here’s what they would do with the short video platform if they bought it.

On Friday, a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld a law that will ban TikTok from app stores in the US if the social media platform’s parent company, China-based ByteDance , does not do this. It won’t sell its stake in the app until January 19.

In a statement about the decision, TikTok said it would appeal the decision to the Supreme Court on First Amendment grounds.

“Unfortunately, the TikTok ban was designed and enforced based on inaccurate, erroneous and hypothetical information, resulting in total censorship of the American people,” TikTok’s statement said. “The TikTok ban, unless stopped, will silence the voices of over 170 million Americans here in the United States and around the world on January 19, 2025.”

With the app’s future in the US uncertain, a number of ultra-high-net-worth investors have expressed interest in purchasing the social media platform.

Big-name buyers, from “Shark Tank’s” Kevin O’Leary to former Dodgers owner Frank McCourt, have said for months that they are ready to step in if ByteDance changes its mind or the Supreme Court rules that the ban can continue .

Here’s what those who have publicly stated they want to buy TikTok would do with the platform if they purchased the app.

Representatives for TikTok did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Kevin O’Leary

In March, the “Shark Tank” mogul told CNBC he wanted to put together a consortium of investors to buy the platform for about $20 billion to $30 billion – a fraction of the $220 billion valuation in the last funding round.

“As it stands, it is the largest entertainment and business network in America, so it is of great interest and value,” he said said the outlet.

However, O’Leary said a sale would likely not include TikTok’s signature algorithms, so he or another buyer would have to “re-emulate” the app’s algorithms and act as a “steward” to transform the platform from “TikTok China” into ” “To convert TikTok to USA”

It’s unclear exactly how O’Leary might change TikTok’s algorithms; However, similar short-video services exist elsewhere on social media with their own proprietary algorithms, and he said a new version could be created under the existing TikTok brand.

Representatives for O’Leary did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Steven Mnuchin

The former finance minister said in March he was putting together a group of investors to try to buy TikTok, CNBC reported.

Mnuchin did not name any other potential investors involved in the offering or the dollar amount they planned to offer for the social media site. In an interview with Bloomberg Television in May, he said he would replicate the app’s signature algorithm to continue the service.

“My plan if we were to buy would be to rebuild the technology under U.S. leadership and make sure that it is completely separate from ByteDance in the future and that it is very robust and secure,” Mnuchin said.

Representatives for Mnuchin did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Related stories

Bobby Kotick

The Wall Street Journal reported in March that the former Activision CEO was considering a bid for TikTok. The outlet reported that the exact amount of his proposal was unspecified, but would likely be in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

The Journal reported that Kotick approached OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and other possible investors during a dinner at an Allen & Co. conference and discussed a possible deal that could allow OpenAI to expand its artificial intelligence models to train using the data collected by the app.

A spokesman for Kotick told Business Insider: “Mr. Kotick has always believed, and he still believes, that a comprehensive framework for mutual trading is better than singling out a single company.”

Frank McCourt

The former Dodgers owner and former CEO of McCourt Global has made democratizing and improving the Internet a major philanthropic focus through his Project Liberty. The company announced in March that McCourt had made an offer to buy TikTok, but the exact proposal was still unknown.

The billionaire businessman has dubbed the project “The People’s Bid.” He has secured the backing of Guggenheim Securities, an investment bank, and Kirkland & Ellis, one of the world’s largest law firms.

The People’s Bid aims to “seize the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reimagine TikTok to help Americans regain their digital independence and give TikTok users and creators control of their own online data for the first time.” , according to a recent press release.

A spokesperson for McCourt referred Business Insider to a public statement from the billionaire following the appeals court’s decision to uphold the law that could force the app’s sale.

“Now that the court has spoken, The People’s Bid stands ready to move forward with our bid for TikTok,” McCourt’s statement said. “We will rebuild TikTok and prove that it is possible to enjoy the internet without sacrificing our privacy and security.”

Other possible investors

Other big names have previously shown interest in buying TikTok, including Microsoft, which attempted to acquire the platform in 2020 but failed when President Donald Trump closed during his first term in August 2020, citing concerns about ByteDance’s ties Beijing issued executive orders ByteDance is selling its TikTok activities in the USA to an American company.

Walmart and the software company Oracle also made an offer to buy TikTok in 2020, but TikTok ultimately failed in court due to Trump’s orders and the takeover plans did not materialize.

The companies have not said publicly whether they would now make another offer. Representatives from Walmart, Oracle and Microsoft did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s requests for comment over the weekend.