The Wall Street Journal reports that a mobile tech company has approached Steve Wynn. Wynn, a former casino mogul, was asked to finance its bid to buy TikTok.
The WSJ recently reported that Silicon Valley-based AppLovin has already made the bid. The company hopes that the former chairman and CEO of Wynn Resorts will back it, according to unnamed sources familiar with the matter.
AppLovin is one of the many companies compete to take over the video-sharing app, with only days until the April 5 deadline set by the Trump administration to either sell or shut down the US operations of TikTok. According to the WSJ, also in the running, are Austin, Texas-based cloud computing company Oracle, with possible investors like private-equity firms Silver Lake and Blackstone.
According to WSJ, Amazon.com submitted an 11th-hour bid too. Nonetheless, it reported that the White House doesn’t view Amazon’s bid as one that it likely to progress.
The report notes that AppLovin pitched itself to the administration as a U.S. job creator. It also presented itself as a solution to national security concerns about TikTok.
ByteDance, a private company based in China, owns TikTok. It’s not a state-owned enterprise even if it operates out of Beijing and is subject to Chinese laws and regulations. Regardless, a lot have raised concerns about the influence of the Chinese government over private companies such as ByteDance.
Officials plan to brief President Trump on potential TikTok buyers who could keep the app running in the United States. Beijing must approve any deal, which is more challenging now that the U.S. is rolling out a broader round of tariffs against China—if a suitable buyer emerges.
The hospitality visionary credited with shaping modern Las Vegas, Wynn, left Wynn Resorts after a bombshell January 2018 WSJ report. The report detailed claims from several female employees at his resort who accused him of sexual assault. Wynn denied the claims and never faced any criminal charges in connection with them.
