Perplexity AI CEO Aravind Srinivas confirms bid to acquire TikTok’s US business

The deal which has been proposed to TikTok’s parent company ByteDance would be to merge Perplexity with TikTok US and if an initial public offering (IPO) were to happen, the US would receive warrants which would be 50% of the newly combined company, according to the report.

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“We’re not trying to be disruptive to the existing shareholders, but we’re also trying to get what President Trump wants, which is about American control and also the government getting equity in the new entity,” the report quoted Srinivas as saying. “I think that we are offering both of that.”

This comes after Trump restored TikTok in the US for its 170 million users there, along with placing the terms which Perplexity is now offering.

The app had briefly gone dark last month after the ban by the previous Biden administration had set in.

“I would like the United States to have a 50% ownership position in a joint venture,” Trump had posted on Truth Social. “By doing this, we save TikTok, keep it in good hands and allow it to stay up. Without U.S. approval, there is no TikTok. With our approval, it is worth hundreds of billions of dollars – maybe trillions.”

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Srinivas also wrote in a post on X (Formerly Twitter) that the “United States Sovereign Wealth Fund will get the proceeds from the Perplexity TikTok IPO.”

The new company could also take on Google as Perplexity has always had a search engine focus. “It seems like they (Google) have unchecked power. We hope that through this sort of structure we can start to actually keep Google in check, too, because otherwise they could just do anything,” the report quoted Srinivas as saying.

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TikTok also has other potential suitors including investor Kevin O’Leary who is offering $20 billion, according to the report which added that Trump has said he’d even be fine with Tesla’s Elon Musk or Oracle’s Larry Ellison as potential buyers.