He has already presented the idea to potential partners, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
The Wall Street Journal reports that former Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotyk is interested in buying TikTok — given a new U.S. bill that would require the social network to be sold to a local owner or banned outright in the country.
Kotyk allegedly discussed the idea at a conference with potential partners, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Zhang Yiming, chief executive of Chinese TikTok owner ByteDance.
If TikTok is sold, it will likely be worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
Bobby Kotyk led Activision for more than 30 years and retired last year. In a 2021 settled lawsuit, the company under his leadership was accused of facilitating sexual harassment and gender discrimination. According to the WSJ, Kotyk knew about the attacks and complaints, but did not fully disclose the information to the board – he himself was also accused of harassment, The Verge reported.
Activision Blizzard employees demanded the resignation of Kotyk after the information was released, but he remained in the position until the completion of the acquisition of Microsoft in 2023.
The “Protecting Americans from Foreign-Controlled Apps Act,” which Joe Biden plans to sign, requires ByteDance to sell TikTok within 6 months or face being banned from US app stores. Last week, the social network sent out push notifications asking you to call your representatives. After a vote in the House of Representatives, where it is expected to be approved, the bill will be sent to the Senate.
Lawmakers’ concerns currently center on TikTok’s ties to China and the country’s potential access to sensitive data. At the same time, the social network’s collaboration with OpenAI will likely involve training AI models on user data, which is also not very secure.
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