TikTok has said reports it could sell its US business to X owner Elon Musk are “pure fiction”.
According to Bloomberg News, officials in China – the home of TikTok’s parent firm ByteDance – are weighing up a possible sale to the billionaire X owner if it can not overturn an impending US ban.
But in response to the reports, a TikTok spokesperson said: “We can’t be expected to comment on pure fiction.”
TikTok is facing a ban in the US from January 19 over US national security concerns about China and what it believes is its possible influence over TikTok – something the company has always denied.
Billionaire X owner Elon Musk (Kirsty Wigglesworth/PA)
ByteDance has been told to either sell TikTok’s US business or face the app being banned in the United States.
The report said Chinese officials are now in preliminary talks about a potential sale to Mr Musk should the firm be unable to block the ban.
It said the social media giant’s US business could either be sold through a competitive process or through an arrangement by the Chinese government, suggesting the app’s future is no longer solely in the hands of ByteDance.
Incoming US president Donald Trump has suggested his administration would block the ban, but he enters office after it is due to take effect.
He has called for the deadline to be pushed back to give him time to negotiate a “political resolution”.
Last week during a hearing on the issue, the US Supreme Court appeared inclined to uphold the ban, with justices seeming to be persuaded by arguments that the national security threat posed by the company’s connections to China override concerns about restricting the speech either of TikTok or its 170 million users in the US.
ByteDance has previously said it will not sell the short-form video platform, but some investors have been eyeing it, including Mr Trump’s former treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin and billionaire businessman Frank McCourt.
TikTok has previously been banned from Government devices in the UK and some other countries over concerns about ByteDance’s links to China.