Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
US venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz is in talks to invest in social media platform TikTok as part of an effort led by Donald Trump to wrest control of the popular video app from its Chinese owners.
The venture capital group, whose co-founder Marc Andreessen is a vocal supporter of the US president, is in talks to add new outside investment that will buy out TikTok’s Chinese investors, as part of a bid led by Oracle and other American investors to carve it out of its parent company ByteDance.
There was no consensus on the price tag for TikTok yet, according to two people directly involved in the bid, although they added that the US arm was likely to be valued based on its sales. Revenues in 2024 stood at $36bn globally, excluding China, with the US accounting for about a third of that, they said.
The bid recently emerged as the frontrunner ahead of a deadline on April 5, when a federal law would ban the app in the country unless its Beijing-based owner sells the US arm to non-Chinese entities, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.
Andreessen invested early in Facebook and poured $400mn into Elon Musk’s buyout of Twitter in 2022, but is not an investor in ByteDance. The firm was approached as TikTok’s advisers and the White House sought to add financial firepower to ongoing discussions. Andreessen was strongly considering making an investment, said three people familiar with the discussions.
Blackstone Group and other large asset managers not already invested in ByteDance have also been approached as part of late-stage talks to split TikTok from its parent ahead the deadline, said the people.
Blackstone was discussing investing well below $1bn, while Andreessen was interested in taking a larger stake, said the sources, who cautioned that the talks were ongoing and a deal could fail to materialise. Reuters earlier reported on Blackstone’s interest.
Andreessen Horowitz did not respond to requests for comment. Blackstone declined to comment. TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Andreessen’s talks come as part of broader negotiations by TikTok’s largest US investors to take over the company alongside software giant Oracle, in a bid meant to assure Trump that the video app is free from Chinese control and can continue operating in the country.
ByteDance’s existing backers including General Atlantic, Susquehanna, KKR and Coatue are seeking to acquire additional stakes in a spun-off TikTok US business, the Financial Times has previously reported.
Oracle, co-founded by Trump ally Larry Ellison, would also potentially take a small shareholding and secure TikTok’s US data, allowing ByteDance to continue to operate its highly sought-after algorithm, which has been a central demand of the Chinese government.
Marc Andreessen’s close ties to the Trump administration include helping recruit staff for the billionaire Musk’s US government cost-cutting unit, while former Andreessen Horowitz general partner Sriram Krishnan is serving as a White House adviser for artificial intelligence.
The firm is also a big investor in other companies operated by Musk, including his AI company xAI, which acquired X on Friday.
Additional reporting by Zijing Wu in Hong Kong
Credit: Source link
