
All week, the company trending in the news has been TikTok, especially since it is set to be banned in the US on Sunday. The TikTok ban has sent creators into a frenzy, with some advising their followers to move over to Rednote.
With over 100 million American users, TikTok is culturally dominant. However, its ties to the CCP have US authorities worried that the app could be used to manipulate public opinion and collect massive amounts of data on American citizens.
TikTok has inspired many clones like Reels and Shorts, but none have been quite as successful. If you can't beat them, buy them. Perhaps that's why some investors, such as Kevin O'Leary, are reportedly offering $20 billion in cash to purchase TikTok's US assets from its parent company, ByteDance. Earlier this week, a report from Bloomberg claimed that Chinese authorities were planning to sell the US operations to Elon Musk, although TikTok later denied those claims.
Now, another party has made an offer for TikTok U.S. CNBC reports (citing sources that wish to remain anonymous) that Perplexity AI has submitted a bid for TikTok U.S. to its parent company, ByteDance. The bid proposes creating a new merged entity that CNBC says will combine Perplexity, TikTok U.S., and new capital partners.
CNBC noted that even if the deal goes through, it will likely take months to complete. There’s talk that the deal will reportedly cost more than $50 billion. However, remember this is a claim from an anonymous source, so neither Perplexity nor TikTok have confirmed it.
Perplexity, the company reportedly making the bid, is an AI-powered search engine that uses large language models combined with internet search to provide cited responses to user queries. The company, which recently acquired Read.cv, reports approximately 15 million monthly active users and handles over 100 million queries per month.
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