MrBeast is officially trying to buy TikTok

Ever since our new president, Donald Trump, temporarily saved TikTok from a national ban, Americans have been wondering which deep-pocketed businessman would throw in his hat to buy the popular social media platform. Now we have a new contender: viral influencer Jimmy Donaldson (aka MrBeast). “Okay, okay, I’ll buy Tik Tok so they don’t get banned,” Donaldson published on X last week. “Ironically so many billionaires have contacted me since I tweeted this, let’s see if we can do it,” he added.

On Tuesday, Donaldson’s attorney told CNN that the reality TV star was serious about buying the social media platform and that Donaldson is now part of a group of US investors pushing to buy the site. Law firm Paul Hastings, which represents the group, said the bid comes in response to the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold an earlier law that would have forced TikTok to be sold or banned in the US

It makes perfect sense that Donaldson, whose business revolves around generating insane viral content— would like to own the platform most responsible for spreading insane viral content. Buying TikTok would effectively give it a monopoly on the infotainment sector, which for the world’s most powerful influencer is equivalent to winning the lottery.

The whole reason we’re in this mess is because last April, Joe Biden signed a bill it would force TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to either sell its app to an American company or face a nationwide ban. Commentators noted what political gibberish this was given how hugely popular TikTok is among young voters. When he returned to the White House this week, Trump easily took advantage of Biden’s unpopular decision. By signing an executive order, Trump gave TikTok the bill 75-day extension windowduring which time ByteDance will be allowed to find a suitable buyer, provided America retains 50 percent ownership of the platform. Trump has already made it clear he would be open to other celebrities buying the site — including fellow billionaires Elon Musk and Larry Ellison.

However, there are signs that Trump may support a deal with Donaldson. Bloomberg has reported that Brad Bondi, the brother of Pam Bondi, Trump’s pick for attorney general, represents the investor group behind Donaldson’s push to acquire the platform. Trump and Bondi have a history in common. Bondi was part of the legal team that helped merge the president’s embattled Trump Media & Technology Group Corp (which owns his social media platform, A social truth) with blank check company last March, writes Bloomberg. The deal was widely accepted as a bailout for Trump when his legal troubles were at their worst. Bondi also represented Elon Musk in 2018 when the tech billionaire was charged with securities fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission, The Lever reported earlier.

The reason why the US took such aggressive action to ban its children’s favorite social media platform is still not fully understood. The dominant narrative was that US officials were worried about the platform’s ties to China and wanted to sever the connection between the company and its geopolitical foe. However, an alternative theory is that TikTok served as popular vector through which pro-Palestinian activists can spread evidence of Israeli atrocities, thereby turning America’s children against its special ally in the Middle East. Mitt Romney said the same thing last year, when he hinted that the reason there was “overwhelming support to shut down” TikTok was the “huge” number of “mentions of Palestinians compared to other social media sites”. Ann contributor at Time last year similarly blamed an abundance of pro-Palestinian content for a rise in anti-Semitic incidents on US college campuses

Ever since TikTok’s resurrection, rumors have circulated that the platform is already cracking down on pro-Palestinian content. However, these rumors may be slightly exaggerated. A 404 Media investigation published Wednesday found that the site does not appear to consistently suppress pro-Palestinian content. The site told reporters that pro-Palestinian content does not violate its terms of service.

If the point of placing TikTok under American control is indeed to stem the flow of pro-Palestinian content to American audiences, there will be some precedent for this in the behavior of other American tech companies. A recent Human Rights Watch report on Meta found that the company practiced “systematic censorship of Palestinian content on Instagram and Facebook.” X and YouTube also ran into their own controversies involving Israeli-Palestinian content.