Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Carol, let's turn to TikTok. Now this is such a
Speaker 2: big issue in Washington. We're joined by Frank McCord, executive
Speaker 2: chairman of McCourt Global and founder of Project Liberty, which
Speaker 2: have made a formal offer to acquire the social media
Speaker 2: giant less than two weeks ago, not long before the
Speaker 2: band deadline. Frank, I wanted to start with the reprieve
Speaker 2: that President Donald Trump signed hours after taking office. How
Speaker 2: has that complicated efforts by you and other bidders perhaps
Speaker 2: to get byt Dance to come to the table to
Speaker 2: talk about a sale.
Speaker 1: Well, I really haven't complicated anything from our perspective, Mike,
Speaker 1: where you just continue to you know, chug along, and
Speaker 1: we're prepared here. We're hanging around the hoops, so to speak,
Speaker 1: waiting for bike Dance to make a decision. And if
Speaker 1: it takes a little bit more time, so be it.
Speaker 1: But you know, we feel where in a really unique
Speaker 1: position to buy us TikTok. We're the only ones that
Speaker 1: actually put a bid in and submitted to the Department
Speaker 1: of Justice before the original deadline, and where we were
Speaker 1: ready to roll, but for a signature from BYT Dance,
Speaker 1: So we continue to be ready. We have more and
Speaker 1: more conversations, there's more and more excitement around this. We
Speaker 1: had a fabulous couple of days in Davos where there
Speaker 1: was great excitement around the project. So yeah, I've remain
Speaker 1: optimistic and I think we just have to give BYT
Speaker 1: Dance time to sort this out, but I believe they will.
Speaker 1: Buying us TikTok without the Chinese technology is the way forward.
Speaker 2: What if you heard back from Byte Dance in response
Speaker 2: to this offer, Have they been engaging much at all?
Speaker 2: And would President Donald Trump be in position to perhaps
Speaker 2: help you get them to really get the discussions going.
Speaker 1: Well, my hope is that President Trump can be, you know,
Speaker 1: a deal maker here and help get this a deal
Speaker 1: done by convincing By Dance to actually sell us TikTok
Speaker 1: and not shut it down. I mean, those are the
Speaker 1: two choices here, and By Dance themselves have been pretty silent.
Speaker 1: I mean, they've acknowledged receipt of our offer, but I
Speaker 1: think quite frankly, they're they're digesting everything. I think their
Speaker 1: hope originally was relief from the Supreme Court, which they
Speaker 1: did not get. As you well know, and now I
Speaker 1: think they're in a new reality, and so they're confronted
Speaker 1: with a shutdown or a sale, and we believe that
Speaker 1: a sale is the best way forward. It will keep
Speaker 1: the opp lit up and as I say it, without
Speaker 1: the Chinese technology, why not sell?
Speaker 3: Who have you been talking to? Where's the excitement in Dallas?
Speaker 1: It's interesting. We had a little house called Future House
Speaker 1: that on the promenade and was lined with different AI
Speaker 1: products being marketed and and so forth. It was the
Speaker 1: theme really of Davos this year, and Carolyn our house
Speaker 1: Future House had a long line outside.
Speaker 3: Of people who want to invest with you, though, Frank
Speaker 3: you speaking to mister Beest, for example, because he's joined
Speaker 3: another consult him, it seems.
Speaker 1: Well, mister Beasts has joined all consortiums, so he's interested
Speaker 1: in keeping his options open. I've talked to Jimmy. Others
Speaker 1: have talked to Jimmy. You've read the reports that he
Speaker 1: has not aligned with a single bidder, But put that aside.
Speaker 1: I think the people that were really interested in of
Speaker 1: course interested in seeing what will happen with TikTok. But
Speaker 1: as I've said over and over again, this is an
Speaker 1: opportunity to actually reimagine how the internet works and give
Speaker 1: people ownership and control of their identity and their data
Speaker 1: and their relationships. And that's very exciting to people and
Speaker 1: including by the way, TikTok influencers.
Speaker 3: And that is what sets you apart the fact that
Speaker 3: you're building to a new tech stack basically, and a
Speaker 3: decentralized one at that. Frank, what does it mean to
Speaker 3: potentially work with the US government? Would you want to
Speaker 3: have the US government also buying, in fact talking in
Speaker 3: the US government. We're just going to have to listen
Speaker 3: in to President Trump just one moment, Frank, sit with us.
Speaker 3: We were just asking you if you'd work alongside Trump.
Speaker 3: He's thinking about potentially having a US the government own
Speaker 3: a piece of TikTok.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, we absolutely want to work alongside President Trump,
Speaker 1: and I think he can be very very helpful. I
Speaker 1: do think ultimately the US TikTok is going to be
Speaker 1: in the hands of the private sector and totally disentangled
Speaker 1: from the Chinese technology. I think that's really clear in
Speaker 1: the legislation and was made doubly clear. You know on
Speaker 1: pages five, five and six of the Supreme Court decision
Speaker 1: that their Congress is looking for a complete disentanglement. And
Speaker 1: that's Caroline, which puts us in a unique position because
Speaker 1: we have the tech stack. We've been building it for
Speaker 1: the last five years to move the user base and
Speaker 1: the data onto This is.
Speaker 3: A story that will evolve. We thank you so much
Speaker 3: for your patients coming life from Rome. Frank McCourt, executive
Speaker 3: chairman of the Court Global and founder of Project Liberty.
Speaker 3: We hope we will come back as the negotiations continue.