With a TikTok ban looming in the USA, Perplexity AI is the newest bidder hoping to provide the video app a brand new company residence.
CNBC first reported on Perplexity’s curiosity. A supply with data of the provide confirmed to TechCrunch that Perplexity (whose CEO Aravind Srinivas is pictured above) has submitted a bid to merge with TikTok US.
The supply additionally confirmed different particulars in regards to the bid — that it might create a brand new entity combining Perplexity, TikTok US, and new fairness companions; that the majority buyers in TikTok’s guardian firm ByteDance would have the ability to retain their fairness; and that by merging, Perplexity hopes to carry extra video to its AI search engine.
A legislation requiring ByteDance to both promote TikTok or see it banned within the US is about to take impact on Sunday, January 19. That will probably be President Joe Biden’s final day in workplace, and officers from his administration have stated that it is going to depart the precise implementation of the ban “to the following Administration.”
In the meantime, President-elect Donald Trump, who will probably be inaugurated on Monday, stated he would “most certainly” give TikTok a 90-day extension, and TikTok’s CEO posted a video thanking Trump for his efforts.
Nevertheless, TikTok stated that with out extra specific assurances of non-enforcement from the Biden administration, it will likely be “pressured to go darkish” on Sunday.
Regardless of plenty of patrons expressing curiosity in TikTok, ByteDance has stated repeatedly that it doesn’t intend to promote. (The corporate described a report that the Chinese language authorities is open to an acquisition by Elon Musk as “pure fiction.”) CNBC studies that Perplexity is hoping it might probably overcome these reservations by proposing a merger fairly than a sale.
TechCrunch has reached out to TikTok and Perplexity AI for remark.
