American real estate tycoon Frank McCourt is working on forming a consortium to bid for TikTok's US operations.

McCourt serves as the chairman of investment firm McCourt Global and aims to reshape social media through Project Liberty, an initiative unveiled in 2021, designed to challenge internet giants like Meta. He has already invested US$500 million and sees the potential acquisition of TikTok as an opportunity to catalyze alternative technological models in the current internet space.

The financing status of the project remains unclear. The initiative, labelled as "People's Bid," involves collaboration with investment bank Guggenheim Securities, law firm K&L Gates, and a group of scholars and technology experts. The bid has received support from World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee.

Earlier, US President Biden compelled ByteDance, TikTok's Chinese parent company, to divest its American assets or face a ban, triggering widespread interest in the acquisition. Former US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin expressed "significant interest" in TikTok, while former Google CEO Eric Schmidt disclosed having considered a bid in the past.

ByteDance has filed a lawsuit against the US government's decision and stated its intention to not sell the asset.