(Washington) The artificial intelligence (AI) start-up Perplexity AI submitted on Saturday to the Chinese group ByteDance a merger offer with the American subsidiary of the social network TikTok, a source close to the matter told AFP, a few hours of a possible disappearance of the platform.
Posted at 5:47 p.m.
TikTok is subject to a law which takes effect on Sunday and requires its parent company, the Chinese group ByteDance, to sell the social network under penalty of ban.
ByteDance has so far refused to consider a sale and TikTok announced on Friday that it was preparing to disconnect the application when the limit set by a law passed in the US Congress expired in April 2024.
The project, initially revealed by the American channel CNBC, provides for the creation of a new entity which would bring together the assets of Perplexity AI and TikTok USA, the source said.
The securities of this holding company would be distributed, in part, to existing shareholders of Perplexity AI and ByteDance, with the balance going to new investors ready to acquire a stake in the new entity.
ByteDance shareholders not wishing to participate in this new structure would have their shares bought back.
Around 60% of ByteDance’s capital is distributed among institutional investors, while 20% is held by the company’s founders and 20% by its employees.
The transaction proposed by Perplexity AI does not give an amount for TikTok, “but I do not see an agreement occurring at a valuation lower than $50 billion,” explained the source close to the matter.
-Given the nature of the operation, very little money would actually change hands, the idea being to award the stakeholders shares in the new conglomerate.
This union would allow Perplexity AI to enrich the content offered to its users, according to the source.
Launched in late 2022 and backed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Perplexity AI combines an AI assistant and a search engine to find information on the internet.
It wants to be a competitor to the big search engines, primarily Google.
In December, the start-up completed a new fundraising round, which valued it at $9 billion.
Other investors have expressed interest in TikTok.
Businessman Frank McCourt is ready to put $20 billion on the table with other partners, for the application’s American activities, without his powerful algorithm.
On Saturday, Donald Trump declared that he would study the file closely once he was inaugurated as president of the United States on Monday, and that a 90-day delay in the implementation of the law would “probably be decided”.
