Since Saturday evening, TikTok is no longer accessible in the United States. The platform is subject to an American federal law which takes effect on Sunday and requires its parent company, ByteDance, to sell the social network under penalty of ban.
Hours before TikTok went offline, Perplexity AI attempted to offer the app “a new house” on American territory, reports the specialized site TechCrunch.
The artificial intelligence (AI) start-up, launched in 2022 and supported by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has submitted a merger offer to the Chinese group, a source close to the matter told Reuters. CNBC.
The law requiring ByteDance to sell its platform was passed last April by Congress and was validated on Friday by the American Supreme Court after an appeal by the Chinese social network. According to the Department of Justice, TikTok poses a serious threat to national security because of its access to the personal data of many Americans, potentially exploitable by the Chinese government.
Trump talks about a “90-day reprieve”
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 the law passed in Congress expires.
The merger plan proposed on Saturday provides for the creation of a new entity which would combine the assets of Perplexity AI and TikTok USA. The securities of this holding company would be distributed, in part, to the existing shareholders of Perplexity AI and ByteDance, the balance going to new investors ready to acquire a stake in the new group. ByteDance shareholders not wishing to participate in this new structure would have their shares bought back.
-Perplexity, which combines an AI assistant and a search engine, hopes, by merging with TikTok, “being able to bring more videos to your search engine”underlines CNBC.
But according to the channel, “a potential transaction between Perplexity AI and ByteDance would likely take months.”
Saturday, during an interview with NBCPresident-elect Donald Trump, for his part, declared that he would grant “very likely” a 90-day reprieve for the video sharing platform.
TikTok, for its part, made its online application inaccessible on Saturday evening, due to lack of guarantees from the Biden government, while indicating that the new Republican president “will work on a solution” with the platform for “restore”.
