Chinese officials are reportedly considering selling TikTok's US operations to Elon Musk as the platform faces a looming deadline to divest from Chinese ownership under a new US law. This potential sale, which is still in its preliminary stages, comes as the US government alleges that TikTok poses a national security risk due to its ties to Beijing. Musk's involvement, if it materializes, would see TikTok integrated into his social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
Chinese officials are exploring a potential sale of US TikTok operations to billionaire Elon Musk as the video-sharing platform faces an American law requiring imminent Chinese divestment, according to a Bloomberg News report on Monday. The report, citing anonymous sources familiar with the matter, outlined a scenario being discussed in Beijing where Musk's social media company X would purchase TikTok from Chinese owner ByteDance and combine it into the platform formerly known as Twitter.
The report estimated the value of TikTok's US operations to be between $40 and $50 billion. Although Musk is currently ranked as the world's wealthiest person, Bloomberg said it was unclear how Musk could execute the transaction, or if he would need to sell other assets. The US government passed a law last year that requires TikTok's ByteDance to either sell the wildly popular platform or shut it down. It goes into effect on Sunday, a day before President-elect Donald Trump takes office. The US government alleges that TikTok allows Beijing to collect data and spy on users and is a conduit to spread propaganda. China and ByteDance strongly deny the claims. TikTok has challenged the law, taking an appeal all the way to the US Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments on Friday. During the hearing, a majority of the conservative and liberal justices on the nine-member bench appeared skeptical of arguments by a lawyer representing TikTok that forcing a sale was a violation of First Amendment free speech rights. Bloomberg characterized Beijing's consideration of a possible Musk transaction as 'still preliminary,' noting that Chinese officials have yet to reach a consensus on how to proceed. It said it was not clear how much ByteDance knew of the Chinese government's planning. TikTok did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment, but a representative was cited by Variety as saying: 'We can't be expected to comment on pure fiction.' Musk is a close ally to Trump, who is expected to play an influential role in Washington in the coming four years. He also runs electric car company Tesla, which has a major factory in China and counts the country as one of the automaker's biggest markets. Trump has repeatedly threatened to enact new tariffs on Chinese goods, which would expand a trade war begun in his first term and which was largely upheld, and in some cases supplemented, by outgoing President Joe Biden
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