MrBeast and the CEO of Roblox Are Trying to Buy TikTok for Over $20 Billion

MrBeast, the popular YouTuber, is reportedly part of a consortium attempting a $20 billion+ bid to acquire TikTok. This investor group, including MrBeast, Jesse Tinsley (Employer.com founder), David Baszucki (Roblox co-founder and CEO), and Nathan McCauley (Anchorage Digital head), estimates the acquisition cost at $25 billion.

Bloomberg reported on this ambitious endeavor, noting that ByteDance, TikTok's parent company, has declared its U.S. operations are not for sale. The Tinsley-led group acknowledges they haven't yet received a direct response.

MrBeast's representatives confirmed his involvement in discussions with various parties, expressing a desire to align with the eventual winning bidder. He tweeted on January 22nd, "The leading groups who are all credible bidding on Tik Tok have reached out for us to help them, I’m excited to partner/make this a reality. Big things cooking."

Earlier this week, President Trump mentioned Microsoft's purported negotiations to acquire TikTok, anticipating a bidding war. Microsoft hasn't verified this claim.

TikTok, briefly unavailable to its 170 million U.S. users, was temporarily offline before a January 19th deadline requiring ByteDance to sell or face a ban. This outage followed the Supreme Court's rejection of TikTok's First Amendment challenge. The court acknowledged common data practices but cited TikTok's scale, susceptibility to foreign control, and vast data collection as justifying special measures to address national security concerns. Service resumed after assurances from President Trump that penalties would be avoided.

TikTok stated at the time, “It’s a strong stand for the First Amendment and against arbitrary censorship. We will work with President Trump on a long-term solution that keeps TikTok in the United States.”

Following his inauguration on January 20th, President Trump issued an executive order delaying enforcement of the law by 75 days. He is engaging in discussions with several entities regarding a potential TikTok buyout, including Elon Musk.