Why is TikTok buying back stock?

TikTok may have missed the best chance of IPO, when Trump asked for a one-time fee last year. Their IPO may be postponed indefinitely, or has to retreat from US capital market.

A buyback is a generous perk offered by a pre-IPO to offer early employees a liquidation option. It’s not mandatory. But some people either need cash right now or want to de-risk or whatever reasons they may have and it’s sweet to have the option to do so without trying to navigate the shark-like secondary markets out there. I will not sell a single one of my vested shares but I applaud giving the choice. Dropbox has done this, DocuSign did it twice before it IPO, and ByteDance has done it 1-2 times each of past three years. Buybacks are a strong sign that the company is confident. I mean why else would it buy it’s own stock back from employees it issued to. Regarding IPO plans - just way too many rumors and speculation even internally there’s like various versions. Who knows - I ain’t sweating it. Fwiw - because we routinely do buybacks most co workers I talk to want us to ipo but really aren’t in a super hurry for it to happen. More time more growth!