Chinese officials have reportedly held preliminary talks about a possible option to sell TikTok’s US operations to billionaire Elon Musk, should the short video app fail to avoid an imminent ban.
Beijing officials prefer TikTok to remain under the control of Chinese parent Bytedance, but have discussed other options, including a sale to Musk, Bloomberg reported.
“We cannot be expected to comment on pure fiction,” a TikTok spokesperson said in response to the report. The company has repeatedly said it will not sell its U.S. operation.
TikTok’s endless video stream has quickly earned a place as one of the largest social networks in the world. It first surpassed Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube in terms of app downloads in 2018, and has since become one of the most used apps in the US, with 170 million users.
However, the rise of the social network has caused alarm in some sectors of the United States, where politicians are concerned that the Chinese Communist Party could exert influence over the owners of the application. In April, the US House of Representatives passed a bill that would require ByteDance to sell the platform or face an outright ban in the US.
Last week, the Supreme Court seemed inclined to uphold the law that applies a sale or ban of TikTok in the US before January 19.
TikTok’s US operations could be sold through a competitive process or a government deal, according to the Bloomberg report, suggesting the app’s future is no longer solely under the control of ByteDance.
China’s government has a “golden share” in ByteDance, which several members of Congress say gives the government power over TikTok.
Under one scenario, Musk’s social media platform X would take control of TikTok US and they would run the business together, according to the report. According to Bloomberg, officials have yet to reach a consensus on how to proceed.
It is unclear to what extent ByteDance is aware of the reported discussions, or of Musk and TikTok’s involvement, and there is no information on whether ByteDance, TikTok and Musk have entered into talks about a potential deal.
A sale to Musk would give the world’s richest man greater control of the US information ecosystem, following his acquisition of Twitter, later renamed X, in October 2022. Musk initially said the social network would be politically neutral. , but last year he used the platform. campaign directly for Donald Trump to be president of the United States and promote right-wing and far-right political content.
Any acquisition of a company the size of TikTok – particularly by a rival – would typically draw intense scrutiny from competition regulators at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice. Trump said last month that his pick to chair the FTC, Andrew Ferguson, would focus on “big tech censorship.”
A ban on the app would likely cause some concern among its American users. Influencer MrBeast, who streams shows on Alphabet-owned TikTok rival YouTube, joked on X on Monday: “Okay, I’ll buy Tik Tok so they don’t ban it.”
TikTok has previously said the government’s involvement “has no relationship to ByteDance’s global operations outside of China, including TikTok.”
Musk, X and China’s cyberspace administration and commerce ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.