Former Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick reportedly wants to buy TikTok

Bobby Kotick, the former CEO of Activision Blizzard who stepped down late last year, is apparently interested in buying TikTok new or selling it off. According to a report by , Kotick mentioned the idea of ​​partnering in such a purchase to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and others who sat with him at a conference dinner last week, and raised it with ByteDance Executive Chairman Zhang Yimin. If TikTok is sold, WSJ notes that it will likely go for hundreds of billions of dollars.

Kotick led Activision for more than 30 years, but he didn’t exactly leave on a good note. In 2018, the company was accused of promoting sexual harassment and gender discrimination under his leadership, in what was described as a “pervasive workplace culture of fraternity”. soon after reported that Kotick was aware of allegations of misconduct and assault over the years and did not properly disclose some of those cases to the board. He was also accused of harassment, noted at the time. Activision Blizzard called the report “misleading.”

After the information came to light, he demanded that Kotick resign, but that did not happen. Kotick eventually remained at the helm of Activision Blizzard in 2023.

Kotick’s alleged interest in TikTok comes at a tumultuous time for the wildly popular platform, after lawmakers last week introduced the “Protecting Americans from Apps Controlled by Foreign Enemies Act,” which will sign if it passes. Under the bill, which goes to the floor on Wednesday for a vote, TikTok’s China-based parent company, ByteDance, within six months. Otherwise, it will be banned from US app stores.

TikTok has been trying to get its millions of US users to rally behind it after the bill’s sudden momentum and sent out targeted notices last week. After a vote in the House of Representatives, where it is expected to pass after clearing the Energy and Commerce Committee unanimously last week, the bill will move to the Senate. While lawmakers’ concerns about TikTok center on data privacy concerns and its relationship with China, WSJ notes that including Altman in its purchase could open the app up to the possibility of being used by OpenAI to train its AI models, which also doesn’t sound ideal to users.

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