ByteDance Plans $6B Buyback at $400B, 20% Above Last Round

ByteDance is offering to buy back up to $6 billion of stock from existing investors at a valuation of about $400 billion, The Information reported, with the terms disclosed in a letter to shareholders. The price is 20% above the tender ByteDance ran a year ago, and continues a climb from roughly $268 billion in late 2023 through the intervening rounds.

The valuation 'reflects the strength of its core advertising business and growing interest in its AI work, including its Doubao chatbot,' according to market coverage of the disclosure. Doubao is the top consumer AI app in China by monthly active users. It is one more step on a ByteDance AI build-out that has been a regular beat on our tracker in recent weeks, including Zhang Yiming's push for frontier parity later this decade.

The $400 billion mark follows the January agreement with the Trump administration that averted a TikTok ban in the United States. Under that deal, ByteDance 'sold an 80% stake in TikTok's U.S. data security operation to a joint venture owned by American entities' while keeping 'control of the app's revenue-generating operations.' A separate minority-stake deal late last year reportedly valued ByteDance at about $480 billion, which makes the $400 billion tender look conservative next to what secondary buyers have paid.