Billionaire Ex-Dodgers Owner Places Insane Bid to Buy TikTok—and Build a “New Internet”? Wild.

Well it seems Billionaire and former Dodgers owner Frank McCourt has officially entered the TikTok chat—but he’s not playing the same game as the rest of the usual suspects. While other bidders circle the viral video giant like a pack of hungry wolves, McCourt is pitching what he calls a “new internet.” His vision? Leverage a platform where users—not faceless corporations—control their own data. Bold. Idealistic. Maybe even naïve.

In short, McCourt, the man behind Project Liberty, isn’t just looking to acquire TikTok’s U.S. assets—he wants to use them as the foundation for a data-empowered utopia where your personal info doesn’t get scraped, aggregated, and sold faster than a friggin’ concert ticket for Taylor Swift’s next tour. The main angle to all of this is to kill the algorithm where it’s the community that matters going forward. 

(Source: CNBC) 

Of course, McCourt’s TikTok bid comes with a heavy dose of altruism—or at least, that’s the marketing spin. He’s gathering a motley crew of investors, including pension funds, philanthropies (including Mr. Wonderful), and even grieving parents who’ve been vocal about the harms of social media, to back his grand experiment. According to McCourt, this isn’t about running yet another exploitative social media empire. No—this is about building something better. Think TikTok without the data-mining hell.

“I don’t want to own TikTok,” McCourt told reporters. “I don’t want to be the CEO of a social media platform. I want a new internet.” Translation: He’s clearly trying to rebrand himself as Big Tech’s antihero. 

(Source: Yarn) 

His vision involves creating a platform where users own their data, and tech companies are just custodians—not dictators. Now if you’re getting crypto-whitepaper vibes, you’re not alone. But hey, if McCourt’s “new internet” takes off, maybe we’ll all look back on this moment as the turning point when Big Tech got humbled (or at least slightly inconvenienced). 

But, but, but… there’s a pretty big problem here: TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, isn’t exactly eager to sell. In fact, they’ve been fighting tooth and nail to block legislation that would force them to offload TikTok’s U.S. operations. The case is on a collision course with the Supreme Court, and ByteDance has made it clear they’d rather see TikTok banned than sold.

(Source: CBS) 

However, with the January 19th deadline looming, McCourt and his team are betting ByteDance will blink first. “Our bet is they’re going to sell,” McCourt said, pointing out that plenty of American capital is tied up in TikTok. “Are they just gonna wipe all that out?”---to which I say, he’s not wrong. 

What’s more is that McCourt didn’t hold back when discussing his bidding competition. When asked about Steven Mnuchin’s rival bid—funded in part by Saudi money—McCourt didn’t mince words: “If you replace Chinese money with Saudi money, what’s been solved here?” Shots fired.

(Source: Giphy) 

Now obviously, McCourt’s pitch sounds great on paper, especially in a world increasingly fed up with Big Tech’s data-hoarding ways. But building a new internet isn’t exactly a weekend DIY project. It’s a Herculean task that requires buy-in from users, developers, and advertisers—not to mention billions of dollars in funding. 

So far, McCourt has managed to attract interest from a wide range of backers, including private equity firms and even academics. But at the end of the day, an investment is about buying something that’s going to make money. And if McCourt isn’t after TikTok’s algorithm—a.k.a. The magic sauce that keeps you (and 150 million other U.S. users) scrolling at 3 a.m. when you swore you were just going to watch one video—it’s a risky move. It’s like trying to reboot “Friends” without Chandler Bing. Not the same, and not the same impact.

(Source: Giphy) 

For now, it’s clear that McCourts TikTok bid is a moonshot, but it’s the only one so far that’s actually enticing to the masses. By focusing on data privacy and user empowerment, he’s pitching a vision that feels both revolutionary and almost impossibly idealistic. Whether ByteDance will sell, and whether McCourt can actually pull off his “new internet,” are questions that only time—and maybe a few Supreme Court justices—can answer.

In the meantime,  the race for TikTok isn’t just about who can pay the most. It’s about who can convince the world they’ll do the least harm. So with that, do what you will with this information and place your bets accordingly, friends. As always, stay safe and stay frosty! Until next time…

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Stocks.News does not hold positions in companies mentioned in the article.