TikTok announced on Monday the first payouts from its $2 billion Creator Fund to a number of hand-selected creators, vying to retain top talent as the Trump administration’s threats against the Chinese-owned app drum up competition.
Several TikTok look-alikes, including Facebook-created Reels, have popped up since Trump signed an executive order forcing the sale of TikTok to a U.S. company within 45 days or risk being banned.
Launching a lawsuit against the White House, TikTok appears to be amping up its counterattack while fighting to maintain relevance at the top of the social media food chain.
On Monday, the app announced it would fork out cash to 19 creators making “engaging and inspiring content” as part of the $2 billion Creator Fund ($1 billion over the next three years specifically for U.S. creators), announced in late July.
Among the recipients is famous YouTuber David Dobrik, who has over 20 million TikTok followers and an estimated net worth of $7 million.
Also receiving TikTok dough are Spencer X, a Manhattan beat-boxer with over 40 million followers, and Michael Le, a dancer with 35 million followers—both are featured on Forbes’s list of highest-ranking TikTok stars, boasting earnings of $1.2 million each last year.
Though the fund was marketed for up-and-coming creators, with the requirement that “anyone over 10k followers, with 10k views in the last 30 days,” the average follower count of the winners was 9 million, with the smallest at 27,700.
KEY BACKGROUND
As TikTok’s future became murky, rival Facebook quickly jumped into the mix, launching Reels, a similar short-form video app hosted by Facebook-owned Instagram. Facebook and Instagram are reportedly offering six-figure deals to some prominent TikTok creators to coax them onto the Reels platform. Triller is another TikTok competitor, which recently filed a lawsuit against TikTok, alleging patent infringement. Among the U.S. companies potentially serving as suitors for TikTok are Microsoft and, as of Sunday, Twitter.
BIG NUMBER
200 million. An estimation of TikTok’s total number of users.