Perplexity AI CEO Aravind Srinivas has confirmed that his firm is bidding to amass the Chinese language-owned TikTok’s US enterprise, in line with a Fox Enterprise report.
Aravind Srinivas, CEO of Perplexity, speaks through the Semafor 2024 World Economic system Summit in Washington, DC in Washington.(Saul Loeb/AFP)
The deal which has been proposed to TikTok’s dad or mum firm ByteDance could be to merge Perplexity with TikTok US and if an preliminary public providing (IPO) had been to occur, the US would obtain warrants which might be 50% of the newly mixed firm, in line with 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 within the US for its 170 million customers there, together with inserting the phrases which Perplexity is now providing.
The app had briefly gone darkish final month after the ban by the earlier 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 Reality 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 additionally wrote in a submit on X (Previously Twitter) that the “United States Sovereign Wealth Fund will get the proceeds from the Perplexity TikTok IPO.”
The brand new firm may additionally tackle Google as Perplexity has at all times 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 additionally has different potential suitors together with investor Kevin O’Leary who’s providing $20 billion, in line with the report which added that Trump has stated he’d even be nice with Tesla’s Elon Musk or Oracle’s Larry Ellison as potential patrons.