How much is TikTok worth and who could buy it?

The supremely popular TikTok could be banned on Jan 19 under a federal law that forces the video-sharing platform to divest itself from its China-based parent company, ByteDance, or shut down its US operations.

Several parties have expressed interest in buying the platform, but ByteDance has repeatedly said it does not plan to sell. Experts have also noted the Chinese government is unlikely to approve a sale that includes TikTok's coveted algorithm.

But until the deadline passes, or until the Supreme Court takes action in a ruling that could come on Friday (Jan 17), the possibility of a purchase is still possible. Here's what you need to know:

HOW MUCH IS TIKTOK WORTH?

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives estimates TikTok is worth “well north of US$100 billion” with the algorithm - and potentially up to US$200 billion in a “best case scenario”.

“Without the algorithm, it’s US$40 billion to US$50 billion,” Ives said, adding he does not believe that ByteDance and Beijing would sell TikTok with the algorithm.

Attorneys for TikTok and ByteDance have claimed it is impossible to divest the platform commercially and technologically. They also say any sale of TikTok without the coveted algorithm - the platform’s secret sauce that Chinese authorities would likely block under any divesture plan - would turn the US version of TikTok into an island disconnected from other global content.

US officials warned that the proprietary algorithm is vulnerable to manipulation by Chinese authorities, who can use it to shape content on the platform in a way that’s difficult to detect.

WHO'S SERIOUS ABOUT BUYING TIKTOK?

Billionaire businessman and real estate mogul Frank McCourt and his internet advocacy group recently announced they had submitted a proposal to buy the social media site from ByteDance. Famed Shark Tank investor Kevin O’Leary has also joined the effort.

The group has not disclosed details of the bid.

If a sale occurs, the former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers said he would plan to restructure TikTok and give more agency to people “over their digital identities and data” by migrating the platform to an open-source protocol that allows for more transparency.

Former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has also taken steps to purchase TikTok.

Shortly after Congress passed the ban, Mnuchin told CNBC he had started creating an investor group that would purchase the popular social media company. He offered no details about who may be in the group or about TikTok’s possible valuation.

When Mnuchin was Treasury Secretary, he helped the Trump administration broker a deal in 2020 that would have had US corporations Oracle and Walmart take a large stake in TikTok on national security grounds.

Several other names have been floated as possible buyers - Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast), who recently posted on social media about possibly pulling off such a deal, and former Blizzard-Activision CEO Bobby Kotick.

Whether these buyers are serious and actively assembling a bid for the company, however, is not clear.

HOW A TIKTOK BAN WOULD WORK

If TikTok is banned, users will not be forced to delete the app. But TikTok plans to shut down the service and will show users a message about the law and offer to let them download their personal data, Reuters previously reported.

Even if TikTok was not planning a formal shutdown, the app would not work as well as it did before. App store providers are explicitly barred from distributing TikTok to US users, which means that Apple and Google will remove the app from their stores and will no longer distribute updates to fix bugs.

The TikTok app also relies on a constant flow of new videos, which would become nearly impossible to deliver. TikTok data for US users is hosted and processed on servers owned by Oracle, and most experts believe Oracle would have to cease those operations.

Oracle, Apple, Google and TikTok all either declined to comment or did not return requests for comment.

Beyond that, analyses have shown that more than 100 other service providers, such as content delivery networks, help make TikTok operate smoothly.

"Some subset of that stuff that is required for the app to actually work, both in terms of getting video to you, but also in terms of getting video and content up," said Joseph Lorenzo Hall, a distinguished technologist with nonprofit group Internet Society.

"And so uploading might be one of the first things to go. Americans may only be able to watch as their app rots."

The disengagement of those service providers could also affect tens of millions of TikTok users outside the US, but company engineers are working to address those issues, sources told Reuters.

IS THERE A WORKAROUND?

The most straightforward workaround to keep access to TikTok would be to use a virtual private network, or VPN, which can conceal the internet protocol, or IP, address of a user and thereby their location.

But TikTok has other means of knowing where the user is located, such as geolocation data from a phone, said Jason Kelley, director of activism for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Users could try to access a web-based version of TikTok via a browser while using a VPN, but the web version lacks many features of the app and - if the user has to create a new account - would not be as personalised to the user's preferences.

"It won't be a good service for you, and it won't be a profitable service for them," Kelley said.

CAN TRUMP INTERVENE?

President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office on Jan 20, recently asked the court to put a pause on the law so he can work out a “political resolution” to the issue during his second term.

If the justices - who heard oral arguments last Friday over the law - grant his request, a potential ban on TikTok will be delayed. The Supreme Court is expected to issue a decision within days.

The Trump transition team has not offered details on how Trump plans to carry out his campaign pledge to “save TikTok”. But spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in a statement in November that he plans to “deliver” on his promise.

After Trump takes office, it would fall on his Justice Department to enforce the law and punish any potential violators. On Wednesday, Pam Bondi, Trump's pick for Attorney General, dodged a question during a Senate hearing on whether she’d uphold a TikTok ban.