Former Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick reportedly wants to buy TikTok

Bobby Kotick, the former CEO of Activision Blizzard who resigned late last year, is reportedly interested in buying TikTok as a new company or forcing a sale. According to a report from , Kotick mentioned the idea of ​​partnering on such a purchase to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and others sitting with him at a conference dinner last week, and spoke about it with the executive chairman of ByteDance, Zhang Yiming. If TikTok is sold, the WSJ Note, this would likely cost hundreds of billions of dollars.

Kotick led Activision for over 30 years, but didn’t leave on a high note. In , the company was accused of enabling sexual harassment and gender discrimination under his leadership, in what was described as a “pervasive workplace culture of fraternity brothers.” shortly afterward, it reported that Kotick was aware of allegations of misconduct and assault over the years and had failed to properly disclose some of those instances to the board. He was also accused of harassment himself, noted at the time. Activision Blizzard called the report “misleading.”

After the information came to light, Kotick requested his resignation, but that did not happen. Kotick ultimately remained as head of Activision Blizzard in 2023.

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

TikTok has been trying to convince its millions of U.S. users to rally behind it following the bill’s sudden momentum, and sent out push notifications last week. After the House vote, where it is expected to pass following unanimous approval from the Energy and Commerce Committee last week, the bill would move to the Senate. While lawmakers’ concerns about TikTok focus on fears over data privacy and its connection to China, WSJ notes that involving Altman in its purchase could open the app to the possibility of being used by OpenAI to train its AI models, which doesn’t exactly sound ideal for users either.

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