Chinese officials have reportedly held preliminary talks about a potential option to sell TikTok’s operations in the US to the billionaire Elon Musk, should the short-video app be unable to avoid an impending ban.
Beijing officials prefer that TikTok remains under the control of Chinese parent Bytedance, but have discussed other options including a sale to Musk, Bloomberg reported.
“We can’t be expected to comment on pure fiction,” a TikTok spokesperson said, responding to the report. The company has repeatedly said it will not sell its US operation.
TikTok’s endless video feed has rapidly won a place as one of the world’s biggest social networks. It first overtook Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube in terms of app downloads in 2018, and it has since become one of the most used apps in the US, with 170 million users.
However, the social network’s rise has caused alarm in some quarters in the US, with politicians concerned that China’s Communist party could exert influence over the app’s owners. The US House of Representatives in April passed a bill that would require ByteDance to sell the platform or face a total US ban.
Last week, the supreme court seemed inclined to uphold the law enforcing a sale or ban of TikTok in the US by 19 January.
TikTok’s US operations could either be sold through a competitive process or an arrangement by the government, the Bloomberg report said, suggesting that the future of the app is no longer solely in ByteDance’s control.
China’s government has a “golden share” in ByteDance, which several members of Congress have said gives the government power over TikTok.
Under one scenario, Musk’s social media platform X would take control of TikTok US and run the business together, the report said. Officials have yet to reach a consensus about how to proceed, according to Bloomberg.
It remains unclear how much 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 engaged in any talks regarding a possible deal.
A sale to Musk would hand the world’s richest man greater control of America’s information ecosystem, after his takeover of Twitter, later renamed X, in October 2022. Musk initially said that the social network would be politically neutral, but last year he used the platform to campaign directly for Donald Trump to be US president, and to promote rightwing and far-right political content.
Any takeover of a company of TikTok’s size – particularly by a rival – would usually attract intense scrutiny by competition regulators at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice. Trump last month said that his pick to chair the FTC, Andrew Ferguson, would focus on “big tech censorship”.
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A ban on the app would probably cause some disquiet among its US users. The influencer MrBeast, who broadcasts shows on TikTok’s Alphabet-owned rival, YouTube, on Monday joked on X: “Okay fine, I’ll buy Tik Tok so it doesn’t get banned”.
TikTok has previously said that the government’s stake “has no bearing on ByteDance’s global operations outside of China, including TikTok”.
Elon Musk, X and China’s cyberspace administration and ministry of commerce did not immediately respond to a request for comment.