Social media giant TikTok has reportedly signed a lease that has the Austin tech scene dancing with joy.
According to the Austin Business Journal, TikTok has leased the top six floors — about 126,000 square feet — at 300 Colorado, a 32-story office building in downtown Austin. TikTok did not reply to Built In’s request for comment about this new space.
TikTok is not a stranger to Austin. The social media giant opened a local office in March of 2020. In August 2020, amid tensions with former President Donald Trump, TikTok told Built In that it intended to hire hundreds of employees. The company also said it planned to use the city as a hub for its global brand and advertising business.
Trump eventually gave the Chinese-owned company his blessing to create a U.S. subsidiary, named TikTok Global, that would be partially owned by Walmart and Oracle, which relocated its headquarters here in December of 2020.
Under the terms of the agreement, Trump said TikTok could hire as many as 25,000 people across the U.S., and that it would donate $5 billion to an educational fund based in Texas.
The deal between TikTok, Walmart and Oracle is currently on hold, according to The Wall Street Journal. However, TikTok’s career page lists 97 open positions based in Austin as of Thursday. The company’s president of global business solutions, Blake Chandlee, also lives in Silicon Hills.
