Who will “save” TikTok? YouTube star MrBeast is among several wealthy figures who want to. “TikTok, I’m on a private jet right now about to put in my official offer for this platform,” Jimmy Donaldson, better known on the internet as the creator MrBeast, said in a video Monday. “I might become your guys’ new CEO.” Donaldson is one of a handful of people who have said they are interested in acquiring the app in a bid to satisfy a U.S. law that requires TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell it. But he, like others who are interested, would most likely have to pull together co-investors to come up with the funds. President Donald Trump said Tuesday he was interested in Elon Musk or Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison buying it. Billionaire Frank McCourt’s Project Liberty also created a consortium called “The People’s Bid,” which said it put an offer on the table. news 13 hours ago Whatever happens with TikTok, ‘finfluencers' are here to stay. Here's how to vet money advice on social media news Jan 18 Perplexity AI makes a bid to merge with TikTok U.S. The possibility of a TikTok sale once seemed remote. But in recent days, the idea has gained fresh momentum. Trump signed an executive order Monday giving ByteDance a 75-day extension to sell TikTok to a non-Chinese owner, effectively delaying the nationwide ban of the app that was originally set to take effect Sunday. The app’s U.S. operations have been valued at up to $50 billion if ByteDance does sell. Just hours before Trump signed the order Monday, China indicated that it might be softening its opposition to a sale. Mao Ning, a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Affairs Ministry, expressed a willingness to allow ByteDance to sell at least part of the company. General Atlantic CEO Bill Ford, who is a major investor in ByteDance and is on its board of directors, told Axios on Wednesday that a deal will get done and that there could be solutions “short of [ByteDance’s] divestiture.” Because of this shift, the big question is now about who or what will buy TikTok and not whether ByteDance will sell it, some experts say. Still, it will be complicated. People have also expressed concerns over how a sale might affect TikTok’s unique algorithm, which is known for its ability to curate highly personalized feeds and may be hard to replicate by a new owner. “What happens to the algorithm? Will this be an outright sale or a JV/partnership structure?” Dan Ives, an analyst for the financial services firm Wedbush Securities, wrote in an analyst note Wednesday. “Our view is ByteDance is willing to play ball and look for a legitimate deal/JV partner to keep TikTok up and running while protecting its algorithm. From the beginning we have only seen a few core potential bidders for the TikTok asset that would be ‘approved’ by Beijing.” Trump has proposed the idea of a joint venture that produces a 50-50 ownership split between ByteDance and the United States, although it’s unclear whether he means ownership by the U.S. government or a U.S. company. For now, however, the law would still require ByteDance to give up at least 80% of its stake. Over the weekend, TikTok went dark for less than a day before coming back online, in both instances crediting Trump’s efforts to work with the company on “a solution to reinstate TikTok once he takes office.” As of Wednesday afternoon, TikTok is still not available for redownload on the Apple and Google app stores.  Earlier this month, Bloomberg reported that Chinese officials were considering the possibility of selling TikTok’s U.S. operations to Musk — particularly as Beijing evaluates how China can work with the new Trump administration. Musk has been appointed to helm the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). According to Bloomberg’s report, one possibility under Musk might be some kind of merger between X (formerly Twitter), which he bought for $44 billion in 2022, and TikTok. But ByteDance has denied the report, responding to several news outlets: “We can’t be expected to comment on pure fiction.” Representatives for TikTok and ByteDance did not immediately respond to a request for comment.  Musk, who is also CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has not addressed the rumors — but he has posted several times on X that the ban would contradict freedom of speech. “This law is not just about TikTok, it is about censorship and government control!” Musk wrote on X in March in response to concerns about the scope of the law. “If it were just about TikTok, it would only cite ‘foreign control’ as the issue, but it does not.” Musk, who has extensive business interests in China, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Ives, one of the most prominent analysts in the tech industry, wrote that he believes Musk is the most likely person to be leading a successful bid for the app, citing his “iron clad relationship with Trump.”  “​​We continue to believe Musk will be heavily involved in finding a solution for TikTok and ultimately could build a consortium to buy TikTok,” he wrote. “Other strategic/financial players are looking at this golden asset, but it needs to be formally approved by Beijing and will never be sold with the algorithm in our view.” Ives added that Ellison and his company, Oracle, could also still play a pivotal role. Oracle is one of TikTok’s most vital service providers, managing and storing user data.  Ellison has been a vocal and financial supporter of Republican causes, including hosting fundraisers for Trump during the 2016 election cycle. On Tuesday, the two men appeared together at a news conference to unveil a new venture backed by the White House: Stargate, a partnership between Oracle, OpenAI and Japanese investment holding company SoftBank, focused on powering artificial intelligence production. During that appearance, after Trump floated Musk or Ellison as prospective buyers for TikTok, Ellison responded, “Sounds like a good deal to me, Mr. President.” Steven Mnuchin, who served as treasury secretary during Trump’s first term, has also expressed a personal interest in purchasing TikTok. In 2020, when Trump signed an executive order to ban TikTok due to national security concerns, then-Secretary Mnuchin oversaw the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which was tasked with evaluating the risks associated with the app. He facilitated negotiations and conversations with potential bidders, a process that came to an end when TikTok won a court appeal and the ban was halted. In March, Mnuchin told CNBC that he was putting together an investor group to “buy TikTok,” a plan he said was put on hold because of China’s unwillingness to negotiate. This week, Mnuchin said TikTok U.S. is “worth a lot of money” and stressed that “if it’s managed correctly and it can grow into other areas such as e-commerce and expand in the U.S., it’s terrific business.” Among those not in Trump’s direct orbit, Donaldson, the YouTube superstar, has been the most public about his interest.  Donaldson, who has more than 346 million YouTube subscribers, posted about wanting to buy TikTok earlier this month. The creator, 26, is one of the internet’s most recognizable faces, having grown a multimillion-dollar company, which employs hundreds of people in North Carolina and pumps out videos featuring competitions and stunts that regularly attract tens of millions of views. “Okay fine, I’ll buy Tik Tok so it doesn’t get banned,” he wrote in one X post, later adding: “Unironically I’ve had so many billionaires reach out to me since I tweeted this, let’s see if we can pull this off.” Donaldson’s spokesperson Matthew Hiltzik confirmed that the creator would be interested in buying TikTok as part of a group, and is holding discussions with prospective buyers but has not exclusively joined any bids. Another person who has entertained the idea of potentially buying TikTok is Canadian entrepreneur Kevin O’Leary, a longtime “shark,” or investor, on the business reality TV series “Shark Tank.” He’s part of “The People’s Bid” consortium. In a Fox News appearance Friday, just after the Supreme Court upheld the law banning TikTok, O’Leary said he offered up $20 billion to buy TikTok, saying that selling TikTok is “the obvious solution” for ByteDance. A representative for O’Leary did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Also joining the fray last week was artificial intelligence search engine startup Perplexity AI, which has put in a bid to ByteDance to merge with TikTok. This story first appeared on NBCNews.com. More from NBC News: Relief, revenge but little repentance: Trump’s pardons delight Jan. 6 offenders All 17 deaths in Eaton Fire were in a zone where evacuation orders took hours to arrive Government webpages vanish under Trump, from DEI to reproductive rights