Within just hours of signing up for TikTok, presidential candidate Donald Trump gained over 1.3 million followers.
Trump posted a launch video on his account with the address @realdonaldtrump, on Saturday night.
In April 2024, Frank McCourt, the former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, announced that he was considering purchasing TikTok.
McCourt said he was working with investment bank Guggenheim Securities and law firm Kirkland & Ellis for the endeavor.
The acquisition is being organized through Project Liberty, which is “building a consortium to purchase TikTok and rearchitect the platform to put people in control of their digital identities and data,” according to a press release.
Technologists and academics are also involved in supporting a “more open, inclusive and responsible internet.”
McCourt said, “The foundation of our digital infrastructure is broken, and it’s time to fix it. We can, and must, do more to safeguard the health and well-being of our children, families, democracy and society. We see this potential acquisition as an incredible opportunity to catalyze an alternative to the current tech model that has colonized the internet.”
“By bringing leading academics, technologists, behavioral scientists, psychologists and economic experts together with community partners, parents and citizens, we believe we can preserve – and enhance – the TikTok experience by giving individuals and creators on the platform the value and control they deserve regarding who has access to their data and how it is used,” he continued. “This country has long been the global driver of ground-breaking innovation, and I encourage anyone who’s interested in reclaiming your data from Big Tech to engage with us and take a step forward to redefine the future of the internet for the people.”
David Clark, Senior Research Scientist at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, DSNP Advisor, said that the “potential future” of the social media platform is driven by a “very different set of motivations than the ‘Big Tech’ providers.”
