Will Musk now own TikTok? China mulls selling short-video app to Tesla CEO, says report

Billionaire Elon Musk could possibly get the ownership of the US operation of TikTok, the short-video app that is contesting the impending ban with an appeal to the US Supreme Court. China is reportedly evaluating a potential option that involves Musk acquiring TikTok operations in America if parent company – ByteDance – fails to fend off a ban.

ByteDance has been given a deadline till January 19 by the Supreme Court to either sell TikTok or face a potential ban in the US on national security grounds.

TikTok’s contingency plan for US

A Bloomberg report citing people familiar with the development said though China is strongly in favour of keeping TikTok under the ownership of ByteDance, the justices, during arguments on January 10, signaled that they are likely to uphold the law.

The government in China has a “golden share” in ByteDance, which several members of Congress have said gives it power over Tiktok. TikTok has previously said that the government’s stake “has no bearing on ByteDance’s global operations outside of China, including TikTok”.

The Bloomberg report said that senior Chinese officials are already holding talks of contingency plans for TikTok as part of an expansive discussion on how to work with the incoming Donald Trump’s administration, one of which involves Musk.

Speculation over a ban on TikTok rose over security related issues, which the outgoing Biden administration took seriously. Trump, who was once a critic of TikTok, has appealed to the court to not enforce the ban before his inauguration. Trump has credited his 2024 election victory partly to his campaign on TikTok and promises to take a conciliatory view of the Chinese app despite a stated position of stricter measures against China in his second term.

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Possible plan of giving TikTok’s US control to Musk’s X

One among the many scenarios that’s been discussed by the Chinese government is Musk’s X (formerly known as Twitter) would take control of TikTok US and run the businesses together, the report quoted the people as saying.

Musk bought Twitter in 2023 and rebranded it as X.

Back in April, Musk shared that he thinks TikTok should remain available in the US. “In my opinion, TikTok should not be banned in the USA, even though such a ban may benefit the X platform. Doing so would be contrary to freedom of speech and expression. It is not what America stands for," he posted on X.

The people cited by Bloomberg in its report further said that Chinese officials have yet to reach any firm consensus about how to proceed and their deliberations are still preliminary.

The report further said that it remains unclear how much ByteDance is aware of the discussions, or of Musk and TikTok involvement, and there is no information on whether ByteDance, TikTok and Musk have engaged in any talks regarding a possible deal.

Why TikTok is worried of ban in the US

TikTok has over 170 million users in the US which is roughly half of the country’s population and the ban could affect the app losing a massive chunk of users.

The call for ban was made after US lawmakers raised concerns that TikTok was collecting US user data and undermining national security. Last year, the Congress voted in favour of the ban.

A ban on TikTok will come as a boon for other US social media platforms including Meta owned Instagram and Alphabet’s YouTube. Both are competitors of Chinese social media giant TikTok and have rolled out their own short video platforms.

With inputs from agencies.