TikTok says reports of selling to Musk are ‘pure fiction’
The popular social media company TikTok has denied reports that Chinese officials are considering selling the company to tech billionaire and owner of X, Elon Musk.
”We can’t be expected to comment on pure fiction,” TikTok spokesperson Michael Hughes said in a statement.
The statement from TikTok comes as the platform faces a ban in the US that will take effect on Jan. 19 unless its parent company, China-based ByteDance, divests from the app or sells it.
Bloomberg reported on Sunday that the Chinese government was considering a scenario in which Musk’s social media company X would take over the operations of TikTok in the US, allowing the companies to be run together.
Musk has made remarks in the past year that he doesn’t think TikTok should be banned despite it being a competitor of his social media platform. Providing reasoning for supporting the app, Musk said banning TikTok would be “contrary to freedom of speech and expression.”
The president-elect has also shared he would look into saving TikTok, expressing the sentiment not only while on the campaign trail but also last month during a sitdown with NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“We’ll take a look at TikTok,” Trump said during the interview.
Offering insight into his feelings on TikTok, Trump said that the platform meant something to him, being that it may have contributed to his 2024 presidential victory.
“You know I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok because I won youth by 34 points,” Trump said, adding that, “there are those that say TikTok had something to do with that.”
The Supreme Court took up TikTok’s challenge to the law last month, and Trump wrote a friend-of-the-court brief asking the justices to delay the law so he could negotiate a deal when he returns to office on Jan. 20.
However, the justices seemed inclined to side with the Biden Administration, meaning the law would be upheld, barring any last-minute action.
