artificial intelligence (AI) company Perplexity AI has offered to merge with TikTok US, so the video-sharing platform can avoid being banned in the country, according to a report.
The offer, made to the platform’s Chinese parent company ByteDance, would merge Perplexity AI, TikTok US and new equity partners and allow most of ByteDance’s investors to retain their equity stakes, CNBC reported, citing a source familiar with the matter.
Congress passed a TikTok ban last year, will take effect on Sunday unless Chinese-owned ByteDance sells the company.
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The White House has said President Biden will not enforce the ban and said President-elect Trump he would probably ask for a 90-day stay on the ban, which is allowed by law.
However, ByteDance said on Saturday that it planned to “melt down” on Sunday unless the Biden administration “definitively” guarantees that the ban will not be enforced.
Perplexity is an AI search engine that launched last year. He is worth about $9 billion, CNBC reported.
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Friday, the US The Supreme Court confirmed the bipartisan bill, citing national security risks due to its ties to China.
Although ByteDance has suggested it would not sell TikTok, the “Shark Tank” investor Kevin O’Leary told Fox News He made a cash offer of $20 billion on Friday.
“There’s a reason Congress put this order before the Supreme Court. There’s a reason it ruled in favor of it. It’s not worth the risk,” he said. “And so the obvious solution is to sell it to an American syndicate as ordered.”
FOX Business has reached out to Bytedance and Perplexity AI for comment.