JAKARTA Frank McCort announced on Monday March 3 that Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit and a venture capital investor, had joined his efforts to acquire TikTok operations in the United States as a strategic advisor focused on social media.
Ohanian is the internet pioneer who founded Reddit with his chambers at Virginia University. He sold Reddit to Conde Nast in 2006, then returned as executive chairman in 2014 to lead the company's transformation. Ohanian has also invested in various technology companies, including Instacart, Patreon, and OpenSea.
"He has extensive experience in this industry ... understands how social media is developing," McCort said.
McCort explained that Ohanian will help promote Project Liberty offerings to buy TikTok assets in the US. The offer is referred to as The People's Bid because it plans to use technology that allows users to control how their data is used and shared.
"His role is very important in validating and socializing what we are doing," McCort said. "On the one hand, this is a project with very sophisticated technology, which must be shown to certain audiences so that they understand the validity and need of this technology."
"On the other hand, there are audiences who are not tech experts but are influenced by this technology more than they realize," McCort added.
Ohanian said he was enthusiastic about working on this project to give users more control over their data.
The former Los Angelescus owner and his partner have made an offer to acquire TikTok since early January. This comes ahead of a deadline requiring ByteDance to sell the app to US owners or face bans in the country.
TikTok was temporarily closed in the US hours before the ban took effect on January 19. However, the app service began to be restored after President-elect Donald Trump announced that he would allow re-access to the platform.
Trump has postponed 75 days for the enactment of the ban and appointed Vice President JD Vance to oversee the sales process of TikTok.
The prospect of having one of the world's most popular video-sharing platforms or at least its audience in the US has attracted a lot of interest from the world of finance, technology, to entertainment.
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Other competitors in this offer include the group of investors led by tech entrepreneur Jesse Tinsley, in which there is renowned YouTuber MrBeast ( real name Jimmy Donaldson) and Wyoming entrepreneur Reid Rasner.
McCort revealed that he had sent various information regarding his offer to the White House, including details of financing, his technology approach, and how his offer could meet national security requirements.
According to McCort, the parent company of TikTok from China, ByteDance, is only 'a little' involved in this process. ByteDance has not appointed an investment banker, has not determined the assets to be sold, nor has it set an official valuation.
He also added that there is a possibility that ByteDance would prefer to close this popular video-sharing app used by half the United States population rather than selling it.
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