Reid Rasner says he’s paused his efforts to purchase TikTok for $47.45 billion and possibly place some of its operations in South Dakota.

South Dakota Governor Larry Rhoden had thrown his support behind the bid from Rasner, a financial planner and failed 2024 U.S. Senate candidate.

Rasner Media’s website posted a press release Thursday saying the bid’s on pause “unless China makes substantial changes and demonstrates a genuine commitment to a transparent and lawful divestiture.”

The bid to buy TikTok “remains fully funded,” it said.

The press release blamed China for the pause. It said ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, “is attempting to spin off a diluted U.S. version of TikTok” that would keep the app’s core algorithm under Chinese control.

That “likely obfuscates what they have been doing to manipulate and spy on Americans,” Rasner said in the press release.

Rasner sues state lawmaker over social media slights

He’s also blamed a Wyoming state lawmaker for the TikTok deal’s troubles. Rasner filed a defamation lawsuit this week in Laramie County, Wyoming, against former state Senator Anthony Bouchard for his alleged efforts to “jeopardize a major business acquisition” through disparaging social media posts.

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Rasner told the Cowboy State Daily that the language in the lawsuit is a reference to the TikTok bid.

In May 2024, Bouchard took to Facebook to call Rasner a “phony” and accuse him of misconduct during his college days, according to the lawsuit and screenshots provided in a press release from Rasner on the case.

Rasner “has suffered irreparable damage to his personal and professional reputation, which has now been forever diminished and tarnished,” the lawsuit said.

Bouchard declined to comment Friday.

Rasner Media born in February

In 2024, President Biden signed a bill into law that would either force the sale of TikTok to a U.S. owner or ban the app in the U.S. The Supreme Court found the law constitutional in January. President Trump has now twice extended the deadline for its sale, which is set for Sept. 17.

Rasner launched Rasner Media a month after the Supreme Court ruling. He’s since made the rounds in interviews on the app, calling his bid the “most Trumpian” and pledging to pay content creators dividends on the occasion of a TikTok sale if they invest in it through Rasner’s FoundersTok website.

Rasner also drew the support of Governor Rhoden after offering to locate some of TikTok’s operations in South Dakota, calling the state the leading contender for a headquarters. The governor appeared alongside Rasner for a press conference in May at Dakota State University, a school that trains students in cybersecurity and data science.

Shortly after that visit, Rasner told a group of Wyoming business leaders that he’s always wanted Wyoming to host the company.

Financial questions

Like several of the content creators who’ve interviewed Rasner on the short-form video platform, the press release for Rasner’s South Dakota visit referred to him as a “Wyoming billionaire.”

A South Dakota Searchlight investigation called that claim into question. Rasner would not answer the question directly when asked.

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The Cowboy State Daily asked Rasner about the article. He told the outlet he has “considerable wealth.”

“I’ve had very, very good success in business since high school, and I’ve built a really great life for myself,” he told the outlet.

Rasner’s financial disclosures to the Federal Election Commission for his unsuccessful campaign to unseat U.S. Senator John Barrasso, R-Wyoming, showed that he’d earned a little more than $100,000 the year before that 2024 contest as a financial planner.

He’d also earned more than $60,000 selling goods on eBay, owned a few pieces of property in Natrona County that brought him less than $50,000 of rental income, and had taken out a loan of more than $1 million from a family trust.

He raised less than $35,000 in donations for his Senate campaign, excluding the money he loaned himself.

Rasner has yet to file the required paperwork to show that his campaign paid back the $1.2 million loan he made to his 2024 campaign.

Rasner now has another U.S. Senate campaign committee — Wyoming’s junior U.S. senator is up for reelection in 2026 — that’s raised $105 in donations and lists $188,500 in loans Rasner’s made to his own campaign.

Rhoden response

Rasner has not disclosed the names of any financial backers to the TikTok bid. In a response to questions sent prior to the publication of Searchlight’s investigation, Rasner accused the outlet of liberal activism and bias.

Prior to the publication of Searchlight’s story on Rasner’s finances, Rhoden told the Scouting Report podcastthat Rasner was “ready to go” to buy TikTok.

When asked last month after a tour of a Baltic-area dairy if he still has that level of confidence in Rasner’s bid, Rhoden told South Dakota Searchlight that he’s “yet to have anybody tell me that there’s anything illegitimate about what he’s told me.”

“We haven’t offered him anything, and he hasn’t offered us anything,” the governor said, save the opportunity to talk about the possibility of locating the headquarters in the state.

“I’d certainly hope for that,” Rhoden said. “That’s a no-lose for South Dakota.”

Rasner did not immediately respond to a South Dakota Searchlight request Friday for comment on the pause of his TikTok bid.