Alexis Ohanian joins bid to buy TikTok before U.S. ban deadline

A new name has joined in the efforts to buy TikTok and keep it running in the U.S.

According to Reuters, venture capitalist Alexis Ohanian, the co-founder of Reddit, is joining businessman Frank McCourt in his bid to buy TikTok in the U.S.

"He has that broad portfolio of experience … of where social media was and, I think, a keen understanding of where it’s evolving," McCourt told Reuters.

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In a post on his Instagram Stories, Ohanian screenshot the Reuters story and wrote "Ready to buy TikTok US and bring on chain 🗽"

SEE ALSO: Every potential TikTok buyer we know about

"Where he can help mostly is validating but also socializing what we're doing," McCourt told Reuters. "On the one hand, this is a project which has very sophisticated technology at the core, and so you're dealing with a very specific audience when it comes to demonstrating the validity of that technology and in how it works, and why it's necessary."

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McCourt is the founder of Project Liberty, which offered ByteDance $20 billion in cash for what the group calls "The People’s Bid for TikTok." Canadian investor and Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary is also in on the bid.

This comes at a time in which investors are fighting to get a piece of TikTok before the ban goes into effect. Of course, the Supreme Court decided to uphold then-president Joe Biden's TikTok ban in a unanimous decision. Since then, President Donald Trump extended the period of time before the law goes into effect. Now, the app is running and back on app stores — at least, until Trump's extension runs out on April 5. TikTok says it doesn't want to sell, but the most likely way to stop a U.S. ban is for another company to step up and buy it.

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