🌎 Bidding to save the internet

Good morning, Quartz readers!

Here’s what you need to know

Interest-ing timing. Millions are facing plunging credit scores (some by over 150 points) as student loan collections resume after a five-year pause.

AMD is coming for Nvidia. AMD stock soared nearly 10% after Wall Street reacted favorably — see: an “overweight” status — to its recently announced Helios plans and partnerships.

No chip off this bloc. Chinese tech companies Huawei and SMIC found themselves on Taiwan’s blacklist as the U.S. continues to crack down on AI and semiconductors.

Bricks down, bills up. Despite continued government support, China’s housing slump remains in decline, but the country’s citizens are showing signs of increased consumer spending.

A pharma giant’s maple misstep. A $250 mistake — not paying a patent maintenance fee — will cost Novo Nordisk billions by giving Canadians generic versions of its weight-loss drugs.

Perk-formance review. JPMorgan Chase and American Express are kicking their luxury card rivalry up a notch, with both companies promising greater rewards after revamps.

Frank-ly, it’s personal

Frank McCourt lost the Los Angeles Dodgers in a brutal divorce. Now, he wants to win TikTok — and, in his telling, save the internet while he’s at it. The billionaire real estate mogul is leading a $20 billion bid to buy the embattled platform from ByteDance, strip out its secretive algorithm, and rebuild TikTok atop a transparent, user-owned protocol he’s spent the past four years developing.

That vision — part digital utopia, part personal do-over — is powered by Project Liberty, a nonprofit McCourt launched to “re-decentralize” the web. He believes data is personhood, users should hold the keys, and platforms should serve people, not the other way around. He even met with TikTok’s top creators to pitch a world where followers and content are portable, analytics are accessible, and moderation comes with opt-in labels.

Critics say he doesn’t understand TikTok because he’s never used it. McCourt told Quartz that the algorithm isn’t the secret sauce — the app’s users are. Regardless, the billionaire isn’t the only one eyeing TikTok. Oracle’s Larry Ellison and others have reportedly circled. But so far, McCourt says his group is the only one to submit a formal bid. ByteDance hasn’t publicly responded. The clock is ticking: Under a law passed in 2024, TikTok must be sold or banned due to national security concerns over its Chinese ownership. President Donald Trump has extended the deadline multiple times — with the latest set for June 19.

Now in his seventies, McCourt is casting his TikTok play as a shot at digital redemption, both for himself and for a platform he sees as addictive, opaque, and dangerous for young users. (His 9-year-old daughter still isn’t allowed on the app.) Whether or not he succeeds, his bid offers a glimpse at a very different vision of the internet — one where users hold the power, not just the passwords. Quartz’s Catherine Baab has more on the billionaire who wants to open-source your FYP.

Thread count is up

Reddit is making a play for ad budgets — and this time, it’s bringing AI. At Cannes Lions this week, the company announced “Reddit Community Intelligence,” a suite of tools designed to help marketers tap into the platform’s comment threads for insights.

The products include Reddit Insights, a social-listening tool that parses posts for sentiment and trends, and Conversation Summary Add-ons, which embed real Reddit user posts directly into ads. Early tests showed a 19% boost in click-throughs, suggesting that authenticity might just convert.

This push comes as Reddit tries to prove it’s more than just memes and mayhem. Since its IPO in March, the company’s stock has whiplashed amid concerns about Google’s AI Overviews eating into traffic. Still, ad revenue climbed 61% year-over-year in the first quarter, and Reddit is betting that its communities can be monetized, regardless of the algorithm.

One of Reddit’s biggest tests? A partnership with CVS — a big step in Reddit’s plan to become a serious player in retail media. And Reddit’s moves are part of a broader AI strategy. The company already launched Reddit Answers, a generative-AI feature that summarizes community replies, and Reddit has struck licensing deals with OpenAI and Google, while suing Anthropic for allegedly training on Reddit content without permission. The message? This is a platform that wants to own its data — and monetize it thoroughly.

The real bet is that Reddit’s messiness is the value. While other platforms lean into algorithmic polish, Reddit is pitching raw signal: real people, real opinions, real time. Now, it’s just figuring out how to bottle that chaos and sell it — one ad unit at a time. Quartz’s Shannon Carroll has more on why Reddit thinks your hot take is worth 19% more.

More from Quartz

💰 The Trump family is launching a phone service — and selling a gold phone

💬 WhatsApp will soon have ads, thanks to Meta

✈️ Southwest Airlines is adding cockpit alerts for pilots

⚖️ Some of the top budgeting hacks for DIY projects

🧒 These are the most expensive places in the U.S. to raise a kid

Our best wishes on a safe start to the day. Send any news, comments, and more to [email protected].