A wealthy Wyoming entrepreneur has made an offer to buy TikTok for nearly $50 billion, The Post can reveal.
Reid Rasner, 40, who has founded several firms in the state and currently heads up a media company, is seeking “a controlling stake” in TikTok’s assets, operations and proprietary algorithm for $47.45 billion, according to a copy of a Tuesday letter obtained by The Post that Rasner’s lawyer sent to the app’s Chinese parent company ByteDance.
“By establishing TikTok’s operations in Wyoming, Reid will ignite a new era of economic diversification, creating thousands of high-paying jobs that will not only benefit the tech sector but also supercharge Wyoming’s energy, agriculture, and tourism industries,” the letter from Rasner Media counsel Steve Roberts states.
“This initiative will bring high-skilled workers, cutting-edge innovation, and new investment opportunities into the state, strengthening the economy while ensuring Wyoming remains a national leader in multiple sectors.”
President Trump had pledged to “save TikTok” before taking office and signed an executive order on Day One granting a 75-day reprieve from a law signed by former President Joe Biden that mandated the qualified divestment of the app from its Chinese parent company.
“I met with the owners of TikTok, the big owners, it’s worthless if it doesn’t get a permit,” he told reporters at the White House in January during a $500 billion AI infrastructure project announcement involving Oracle, Softbank and OpenAI.
“It’s worth like a trillion dollars,” the president added. “So what I’m thinking about saying to somebody is, ‘Buy it and give half to the United States of America, and we’ll give you the permit,’ and they’ll have a great partner.”
Trump has also signaled his support for the US assuming a more than 50% ownership stake in the app.
National security hawks have long warned that the Chinese Communist Party has the capability to obtain troves of data on the more than 170 million TikTok users in the US, including browsing histories, biometric identifiers and location data.
Trump himself also acknowledged the “threat,” even as he sought to delay TikTok’s divestment from ByteDance before taking office.
Billionaire Larry Ellison had been floated as a potential buyer earlier this year for the social media app.
Ellison’s company Oracle, which is based in Austin, Texas, already serves as a cloud computing partner for TikTok.
Others rumored to have interest include Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk as well as billionaire Frank McCourt and “Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary, who have said they have $20 billion in commitments as part of a plan to buy the TikTok brand and rebuild its algorithm from scratch on US soil.
Rasner has founded both wealth management and glass companies in Wyoming — and challenged Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) in the state’s 2024 Republican primary last year.
His offer letter touted the Cowboy State’s “abundance of clean, low-cost energy sources” needed “to power TikTok.”
“While traditional tech hubs struggle with skyrocketing energy prices and unreliable grids, Wyoming offers unmatched energy stability, efficiency, and sustainability,” the letter says.
The founder of Omnivest Financial and former owner of Wyoming Glass also said his firm was ready to “enter into comprehensive non-disclosure agreements and conduct due diligence over a six-month period, with an eye toward providing a letter of intent for a controlling stake in the U.S. [sic] assets at the conclusion of that period.”
Reps for TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
