Three months after TikTok's most-followed creator, Khaby Lame, agreed an all-stock deal with Rich Sparkle Holdings reportedly worth $975 million, it is unclear the deal will ever close, TheWrap reports. Lame has taken the company's ticker out of his social bios, and no filing shows his company received the promised shares.
The deal gave the Hong Kong-based, British Virgin Islands-registered firm exclusive use of an AI digital twin of Lame for 36 months, for things like live streams and TikTok Shop selling, with projected sales of $4 billion. Rich Sparkle said in January the merger was complete, but a late-March SEC filing says closing still depends on due diligence and exchange approval.
TheWrap sets the story against a young creator economy in which stars increasingly take equity, from MrBeast's Beast Industries, valued at $5 billion last year, to cautionary cases such as the Hawk Tuah Girl's cryptocurrency. Beast Industries rests on YouTube income, chocolate, toys, a game show and banking; Lame's valuation rested on a projection.
The stock went from about $150 soon after the announcement, a market value of $1.8 billion, to $8.52, roughly $124 million. Big brokerages including E*Trade, Fidelity, Schwab and Vanguard have blocked or limited trading in it. Financiers and agency executives who spoke to TheWrap described it as a likely pump-and-dump, while doubting Lame knew. Neither side commented.
Lawyers and marketers also questioned the AI side of the deal. The $4 billion figure rested on no existing revenue, the firm had no record of creator deals, and demand for celebrity digital twins, tried before by Paris Hilton and IShowSpeed, is unproven. One executive compared their valuations to the NFT boom, and another said avatars are unlikely to replace the streamers themselves. Advice from those interviewed was for creators to insist on guaranteed payments and minimum royalties when licensing voice and likeness, and to get proper representation. They expect a collapse to push creators back toward proven business models rather than end brand deals with creators.
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