Recent reports claim that Chinese officials may consider selling TikTok's US division to Elon Musk to avoid a possible ban — but TikTok is speaking out against the claims as “pure fiction.”
According to reports published on Monday and Tuesday by Bloomberg AND Wall Street Journal respectively, Chinese officials have talked internally about the possibility of selling TikTok's US operations to Musk or a trusted non-Chinese entrepreneur.
Musk's social media platform X may buy TikTok in the US and jointly run the two social media sites, according to Bloomberg's anonymous sources. Musk's xAI startup may also use TikTok data to help develop AI models.
Musk has often made trips to China. He is the CEO of Tesla, which makes half of its cars in China.
In April, Musk wrote in a post on X that “TikTok should not be banned in the US, even though such a ban could benefit the X platform.” He stated that blocking TikTok “would go against freedom of speech and expression” and “is not what America stands for”.
In my opinion, TikTok should not be banned in the US, even though such a ban could benefit ? platform.
Such an action would be in violation of freedom of speech and expression. That is not what America stands for.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 19, 2024
TikTok dismissed talk of a possible acquisition by Musk. A TikTok spokesperson said Wall Street Journal on Tuesday: “We cannot be expected to comment on pure fiction.”
However, TikTok could have been kept in the dark about these discussions. According to Bloomberg, discussions between Chinese officials are still preliminary and may not have involved ByteDance or TikTok at this stage.
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A sale to Musk would allow TikTok to avoid a US ban that is scheduled to take place on Sunday. The ban was brought by legislation passed in April which forced TikTok's parent company ByteDance to sell the social media app by January 19 or face a loss of US operations
ByteDance has said it prefers a closure of the application in one purchase. Over the past nine months, TikTok's case has made its way through the US legal system, culminating in oral arguments heard by the US Supreme Court on January 10, in which TikTok asked the Supreme Court to halt the ban on freedom of speech concerns.
The court has not yet issued a decision or announced when it can be expected to make one.
TikTok has 170 million US users and says a ban would cost creators and small businesses 1.3 billion dollars only in the first month.
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