TikTok employees, of which there are about 7,000 in the U.S., may be granted company stock, and they may also have an opportunity to sell their investments. We believe everyone should be able to make financial decisions with confidence. Many people will assume TikTok Global will not make money because of the track record of companies such as Snapchat (SNAP) and Twitter (TWTR). Some observers, including the management teams at Microsoft (MSFT), Walmart (WMT), Oracle (ORC), and ByteDance, think otherwise. Despite a ban in India, ByteDance, TikTok’s owner, claims to have exceeded 1bn monthly users. According to The Economist, on January 12, 2022, App Annie, a data gatherer, said TikTok caught up with Facebook in 2021 and overtook WhatsApp and Instagram in users’ time.
- Investing in TikTok isn’t as straightforward as investing in other popular social media companies.
- Facebook is currently the world’s largest online social network, with over 2 billion monthly active users.
- The first thing you need to know is that there is no TikTok stock price, ticker, or symbol.
- These are stocks that we post daily in our Discord for our community members.
How does TikTok make money?
It took just 9 months for TikTok to reach 100 million users, an unprecedented rate of growth. It’s now used by more than 1.5 billion people each month, one of just 7 social media apps with more than 1 billion monthly active users. You cannot directly buy shares of Tik Tok stock as a retail investor. However, you can invest in TikTok indirectly by buying shares in the private equity companies which own it. NerdWallet, Inc. is an independent publisher and comparison service, not an investment advisor.
One of the main social media platform sites you can buy stock in is Meta (which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp). But just because you can gain some slight exposure to TikTok doesn’t mean you should. Going to such an effort to gain exposure to one stock may not be worth your time.
The best way to own a piece of TikTok is by buying KKR or Softbank Stock – two global investing firms that own stock in Bytedance, warren buffett biography TikTok’s parent company. However, there are still ways for investors to gain indirect exposure. According to Bloomberg, ByteDance was valued at $300 billion by private investors. However, this valuation does not reflect its market value or how much it would be worth if it went public. In 2020, TikTok was threatened with a ban in the US by the Trump administration, which accused it of posing a national security risk due to its Chinese ownership. To avoid the ban, TikTok struck a deal with Oracle and Walmart, which would create a new entity called TikTok Global that would be partially owned by the American companies.
Bottom line on investing in the TikTok IPO
TikTok is unlikely to be sold to an American company without the approval of the Chinese government. That remains to be seen, as they’ve threatened this for some time. (Update – TikTok is not banned in the United States as of May 23, 2025). Get an email with the top market-moving news in bullet point format, for free.
b) Invest in SoftBank Group (SFTBY)
TikTok is owned 100% by ByteDance, a privately held Chinese technology company. SoftBank (SFTB.Y -4.55%) is a Japanese telecom and e-commerce company that also operates a holding company and its well-known $100 billion Vision Funds. Vision Funds invests primarily in private equity companies with valuations topping $1 billion, also known as unicorns. Temu’s surging popularity and growth potential have many wondering whether they can buy shares of its stock. If ByteDance has to sell its U.S. operations, its future earnings growth will be significantly curbed.
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These platforms enable people to connect by consuming and creating content through machine learning technology. Let’s dive deeply into TikTok and the stock market, discuss how to purchase TikTok stock, and discover who owns TikTok. TikTok is the number one growing social media company, beating out Facebook and Snapchat. There are no plans for a TikTok Stock IPO, even though it has become a very exciting idea for investors.
- Luckily for TikTok, the delays haven’t hurt the business or its valuation.
- There is a lot of freedom, experimentation, and the ability to use content from the public domain without the fear of copyright infringement.
- To date, only India has banned the popular social media app.
- So the financial records aren’t fully available to the public or audited to meet certain accounting standards.
This could also prevent it from profitably investing in better artificial intelligence (AI) and content to compete with Meta and others around the world. KKR (KKR +0.35%) is one of the world’s oldest alternative asset investment management firms. Its investments range from private equity, like ByteDance, to energy, infrastructure, real estate, credit, and hedge funds. But suppose TikTok is able to successfully navigate all these challenges. In that case, this could be an extremely exciting opportunity for investors to own a piece of the next big social media company.
However, the deal was never finalized and is now under review by the Biden administration. Therefore, it is unclear if an American company will buy TikTok or not. In this article, we will answer these questions and more, as we explore the ownership, valuation, and future prospects of TikTok. Arielle O’Shea leads the investing and taxes team at NerdWallet. She has covered personal finance and investing for nearly 20 years, and was a senior writer and spokesperson at NerdWallet before becoming an assigning editor.
But it’s also a high-risk investment because it faces potential challenges from regulators and deep-pocketed competitors. It is possible to privately invest in ByteDance (the company that owns TikTok), but this isn’t available to most retail investors unless you have a significant amount of money to invest. Although TikTok faces stiff competition from the likes of Meta, Alphabet, and Snap – it’s TikTok that has been the social media business to beat in recent years. All the more established social media companies have been losing market share and ad revenue to TikTok. No, TikTok does not have a stock, as it is not a publicly traded company. TikTok is owned by ByteDance, which is also a private company.
Its articles, interactive tools and other content are provided to you for free, as self-help tools and for informational purposes only. NerdWallet does not and cannot guarantee the accuracy or applicability of any information in regard to your individual circumstances. Examples are hypothetical, and we encourage you to seek personalized advice from qualified professionals regarding specific investment issues.
Whether you are a beginner or an expert, HaiKhuu Trading has something for everyone. Some of ByteDance’s notable investors include Softbank and KKR. TikTok is one of the world’s most successful and popular apps, even though it is just five years old. In contrast, ByteDance released the app in 2016, and Mark Zuckerberg began Facebook in 2004. Just choose the course level that you’re most interested in and get started on the right path now. When you’re ready you can join our chat rooms and access our Next Level training library.
Our strategic partnerships with trusted companies support our mission to empower self-directed investors while sustaining our business operations. Some analysts think advertisers could use TikTok’s algorithm to market products to young people who tune out all other advertising. For example, TikTok could show a young person who enjoys watching auto videos and footage of the latest model cars. Analysts believe TikTok’s most valuable asset is a machine-learning platform that uses algorithms to track and identify the videos users want to watch.
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On April 23, 2024, the US Senate voted to ban TikTok if ByteDance doesn’t remove itself from ownership. In other words, the US Senate is trying to force the sale of TikTok to a company they approve of. The Senate believes TikTok poses a national security threat to anyone downloading the app. They believe they’re mining personal data from your phones that they can use to spy on and weaponize without your knowledge or consent. However, given TikTok’s growth, number of users, and global reach, I estimate TikTok accounts for ~40% of ByteDance’s total valuation.
The company has run regular share buybacks since 2017, primarily as a way to provide liquidity for investors and employees. On Public, you can invest in stocks, ETFs, Treasuries, and cryptocurrencies, all on one of the most well-designed investing platforms. At the same time, another bill sought to ban TikTok in the U.S. altogether if it did not sell the app’s U.S. operations to a U.S. company. While many countries have banned or considered banning TikTok, few hold the weight of the TikTok ban in the United States. In April 2024, Congress passed a law banning TikTok’s operations in the United States. The Supreme Court upheld the law, which went into effect in January 2025.
We put all of the tools available to traders to the test and give you first-hand experience in stock trading you won’t find elsewhere. Feel free to ask questions of other members of our trading community. We realize that everyone was once a new trader and needs help along the way on their trading journey and that’s what we’re here for. Also, we provide you with free options courses that teach you how to implement our trades as well. Our watch lists and alert signals are great for your trading education and learning experience.
