Reddit Cofounder Alexis Ohanian Says He Needs to Purchase TikTok

• Alexis Ohanian, the cofounder of Reddit, desires to purchase TikTok.
• Ohanian is making a joint bid with former Los Angeles Dodgers proprietor Frank McCourt and Kevin O’Leary.
• The group says it desires to revamp TikTok round a blockchain-based know-how.

Alexis Ohanian, the cofounder of Reddit, is becoming a member of a bid to buy TikTok from its Chinese language proprietor.

“I am formally now one of many folks making an attempt to purchase TikTok US — and produce it on-chain. TikTok has been a recreation changer for creators, and it is future ought to be constructed by them,” Ohanian wrote on X on Tuesday.

On Monday, businessman and former Los Angeles Dodgers proprietor Frank McCourt stated Ohanian would be a part of his consortium of consumers, “The Folks’s Bid.”

The consortium, which incorporates “Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary, submitted a bid to TikTok in early January. The group stated their proposal would give American TikTok customers “the flexibility to regulate, shield, and profit from their information.”

The group stated in a press release saying Ohanian’s participation on Monday that they are going to redesign TikTok round a blockchain-based know-how.

“Customers ought to personal their information. Creators ought to personal their viewers. Interval,” Ohanian wrote in his X publish on Tuesday.

“We’re setting a brand new normal for what’s potential in digital communities. A TikTok for the folks, by the folks. Let’s have a look at if we are able to pull this off,” Ohanian added.

Ohanian cofounded Reddit along with his faculty roommate, Steve Huffman, in 2005. They offered Reddit to Condé Nast in 2006, however Ohanian returned as government chair in 2014.

Ohanian, who’s married to tennis famous person Serena Williams, left Reddit’s board in 2020.

TikTok’s future within the US continues to be unclear. Beneath the divest-or-ban regulation handed by the Senate in April, the corporate was compelled to cease working within the US on January 19 except it divested itself from its Chinese language proprietor, ByteDance.

TikTok briefly went darkish for US customers on January 18 however resumed its companies on January 19 after President Donald Trump stated he would signal an government order to halt the ban. On January 20, Trump signed an order to pause the ban for 75 days.

Since then, Trump has floated a number of methods to save lots of TikTok, together with having the US personal half of it or a sale to tech billionaires like Elon Musk and Larry Ellison.

Representatives for Ohanian and TikTok didn’t reply to requests for remark from Enterprise Insider.