Clock ticking as TikTok owner tries to find buyer

ByteDance under US pressure to sell app or face ban, but willing or able buyers are few

NEW YORK - TikTok has what many Silicon Valley companies lust after: A culture-making machine beloved by 100 million Americans and deep-pocketed advertisers.

That does not mean they will line up to buy it.

TikTok said on Wednesday that the Biden administration was pushing the company's Chinese owners to sell the app or face a possible ban.

But there are probably few companies, in the tech industry or elsewhere, willing or able to buy it, analysts and experts say.

At a price of US$50 billion (S$67.34 billion) or more the value some analysts said TikTok could command the social media platform would be too expensive for many companies, including competitors like Snap.

The tech giants that could afford it, such as Facebook owner Meta, Google and Microsoft, are likely to shy away for fear of getting caught in years of antitrust scrutiny in the United States.

Then there is the headache of owning a social media company, and figuring out how to handle the endless flood of toxic content.

In addition, it remains unclear how TikTok would fully unravel itself from ByteDance, its parent company in China, or whether any deal would be approved by the Chinese government.

TikTok "has a lot of baggage, and that baggage means that it's hard to make this a reality", said Mr Brian Wieser, an independent consultant who focuses on the media and advertising industries.

There may be other options, such as a private equity company swooping in with an offer with a partner, or ByteDance spinning off TikTok into a stand-alone public company.