Trending Now: Did Khaby Lame (The Silent Reaction TikTok Guy) Just Sell His Company For $975 Million???!!! – Fans React

There’s a rumor zipping around the internet right now claiming that Khaby Lame – the silent reaction TikTok guy – just sold his company for $975 million.

More specifically, the rumor claims that a company called Rich Sparkle Holdings supposedly just acquired a company called Step Distinctive Limited for $975 million. Step Distinctive Limited is apparently Khaby’s “core company.”

Is this true? I guess it’s not totally impossible. Especially when you consider Khaby’s utterly insane and unlikely life story.

In case you have no idea who I’m talking about (though, even if you didn’t recognize his name, I bet you’ve seen his videos), Khaby Lame was born in Senegal in March 2000. When he was just a baby, his family moved to Italy. They eventually settled in the city of Chivasso, where they lived in a public housing complex.

Before becoming one of the most famous social media personalities in the world, Khaby was a modest factory worker in Chivasso. He was laid off from his job in March 2020 as COVID-19 shut down much of the country’s manufacturing.

Unemployed with nothing but time and a phone, Khaby began posting regularly to TikTok. He quickly hit on an incredibly simple magic formula: He posted videos that made fun of overly complicated life hack videos. His videos included his now-trademark exasperated sardonic smirk.

His timing could not have been better. TikTok was just taking over the planet. A planet full of people bored at home. And, perhaps most importantly, because his videos contain no spoken words, there was no language barrier to his humor.

How popular and famous is Khaby Lame? He is literally the #1 most followed person on TikTok with 160 million followers. He is confirmed to be one of the highest-paid social media influencers in the world, making $20 million per year minimum. We currently estimate his net worth at $80 million.

But Did He Really Just Make $975 Million???!!!

Short answer? I think it’s fake news. I’ve seen a thousand accounts on Twitter repeat the claim without any substance or source to back it up. The most authoritative news site I found repeating the claim was… Ladbible, which is not exactly Forbes, Bloomberg or CelebrityNetWorth.

Furthermore, if you read LadBible’s story (you don’t have to), you would see they about halfway down the page they have hyperlinked “$975 million” as if that link will send you to the source confirming the news. Except, their hyperlink actually leads the user to another page on Ladbible, specifically the site’s  “Money” category page. The rest of their article is just filler text about Khaby Lame.

I spent a solid 30 minutes scouring for a legit source, and unfortunately, I found nothing at all confirming this $975 million number. Here’s what I did find:

The overall headline – Rich Sparkle Holdings acquired Step Distinct Limited – appears to be true. I found a press release published on January 11 on prnewswire.com confirming as much:

“Rich Sparkle Holdings, a U.S.-listed company, announced today that it has completed the acquisition of Step Distinctive Limited, a core company associated with Khaby Lame. The move signals a shift from one-off brand deals to a structured, exclusive, full-chain, platform-style commercialization system—designed not merely to monetize attention, but to industrialize it.“

The press release goes on to talk about a vague commercialization strategy built around Khaby Lame’s global audience, including exclusive operating rights, centralized e-commerce execution, and the use of AI-driven content systems to scale his likeness and output across multiple regions and platforms, positioning the deal as a long-term attempt to convert viral reach into a repeatable, platform-style business rather than a series of isolated influencer endorsements blah blah blah…

The press release did NOT say Khaby’s business was acquired for $975 million. It does not mention any acquisition price at all.

I did a little more digging.

Rich Spark Holdings is indeed a publicly listed company on the NASDAQ trading under the ticker “ANPA.US.” A year ago, the stock traded at around $3 a share. At that level, the company’s market cap was $36 million. For most of the last 12 months, the stock has traded at around $20 a share. At that level, the company’s market cap was around $250 million.

In the days following the press release, the stock shot up to $150 a share. At that level, the company’s market cap was briefly $1.8 billion. In the days after the press release, the stock crashed down to its current $50 a share, which gives it a market cap of $600 million:

Is a company with a market cap that has averaged $250 million in the last 12 months really buying Khaby Lame’s business for $975 million? I am skeptical.

Public companies do not quietly make near–$1 billion acquisitions without clearly disclosing deal terms, valuation structure, cash versus stock consideration, or dilution impact. Especially not companies trading on U.S. exchanges.

I could not find an SEC filing, 8-K, earnings disclosure, or any official document confirming anything close to a $975 million transaction. If a deal of that magnitude actually occurred, it would not be buried inside vague PR language about “platform-style commercialization” and “industrializing attention.”

What appears far more likely is this:

Rich Sparkle Holdings acquired or partnered with Step Distinctive Limited in a strategic, equity-based, or operational arrangement, possibly involving stock issuance, future performance milestones, or shared commercialization rights tied to Khaby Lame’s brand. That kind of deal structure is extremely common in influencer commerce, especially when a public company wants exposure to a creator’s audience without paying an enormous upfront cash price.

In other words, this looks much more like a long-term partnership dressed up as an acquisition, not a $975 million payday.

Somewhere along the line, that nuance got lost, exaggerated, or outright fabricated. A rumor was born, Twitter ran with it, and suddenly Khaby Lame was being declared the latest near-billionaire creator.

In conclusion, I very strongly believe this is a fabricated story. I would love to be proven wrong, though! How amazing would that story be if it was true?! From immigrant factory worker to billion-dollar acquisition thanks to wordless videos on TikTok?! I would LOVE to write a dozen stories about that