Frank McCourt, the founder of Project Liberty and executive chairman of McCourt Global, expressed his willingness to share ownership of TikTok as long as the app is hosted on technology developed by his nonprofit, Project Liberty Institute. McCourt’s comments come after President Donald Trump’s statement that he would like the US to have a 50% ownership position in a joint venture in TikTok.
McCourt stated that he is open to any commercial agreement, including a 50% stake, as long as it abides by the law. However, he emphasized that Project Liberty is not willing to compromise on its values and principles. The condition for operation is that TikTok must run on the Decentralized Social Networking Protocol (DSNP), which is overseen by the Project Liberty Institute.
McCourt’s goal is to purchase TikTok and put it on the DSNP, which would enable users to choose how their data is used and who has access to it. The technology allows users to migrate their content and data to another service built on top of the DSNP if they are not satisfied with a particular app.
Project Liberty has bid to buy TikTok without its core algorithm, which the company believes is “worth less” without. Other potential buyers, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison, are also considering making bids for the app. YouTube star Jimmy Donaldson, known as MrBeast, is also preparing to make a bid for TikTok.