That doesn't really help here. TikTok is at an absolute minimum an order of magnitude more valuable than Perplexity, more likely two orders of magnitude. If ownership of NewCo was even roughly proportional to the market value each side is bringing, the ownership structure doesn't meaningfully change compared to TikTok.
And when the ownership structure is the problem, it's obvious that this deal structured as a merger would solve nothing. They'd need to bring a couple of hundred billion to the table; and then we're back to this being just embarrassing, because obviously the money isn't there.
> TikTok is at an absolute minimum an order of magnitude more valuable than Perplexity, more likely two orders of magnitude
They don't need to buy TikTok, they need to buy out Bytedance.
If I had to structure it, I'd have Bytedance spin out TikTook to its U.S. shareholders and then arrange for Perplexity to buy enough of Bytedance's share that Bytedance holds a 49% (non-voting) interest.
> Bytedance without TikTok is still an order of magnitude worth more than Perplexity
They’re not buying Bytedance - TikTok, they’d be buying half of the piece of TikTok Bytedance would own after spinning it out to its non-Chinese shareholders.
The point still stands, they don't have enough of a relative valuation to even be considered serious and a balance sheet that would be a rounding error to ByteDance.
And when the ownership structure is the problem, it's obvious that this deal structured as a merger would solve nothing. They'd need to bring a couple of hundred billion to the table; and then we're back to this being just embarrassing, because obviously the money isn't there.