Rumors have been circulating for several days about the resale of TikTok’s American activities to Elon Musk, while the platform is threatened with being banned from the United States. A spokesperson for the Chinese application responded to the rumors.
TikTok on Tuesday described as “pure fiction” the information according to which Chinese authorities would evaluate the possibility of an acquisition by Elon Musk of its American activities if the popular platform was banned in the United States by the end of the week .
“Top Chinese officials had already begun debating contingency plans for TikTok as part of a wide-ranging discussion about how to work with Donald Trump’s administration, one of which involves Musk“, confidential sources told Bloomberg on Monday.
“We cannot be expected to comment on pure fiction“, a TikTok spokesperson told AFP on Tuesday. “According to a scenario envisaged by the Chinese government, X (…) would take control of the American TikTok and manage the two companies together“, Bloomberg specified, estimating the value of TikTok’s operations in the United States between 40 and 50 billion dollars.
The article noted, however, that the deliberations were “foreplay“.
The United States passed a law last year that requires Chinese entertainment giant ByteDance to sell TikTok by January 19, 2025, or face a ban in the country where the application has 170 million users.
The case went up to the American Supreme Court, which heard the arguments of both parties on Friday: Washington says it wants to prevent the risks of espionage and manipulation by Beijing, while the social network and associations accuse the law of stifle freedom of expression. A clear majority of judges were willing to authorize the ban. The Chinese government and ByteDance have always openly opposed a sale of the American part of TikTok.
Elon Musk, founder of Tesla and SpaceX, created a surprise by displaying his desire to buy Twitter in early 2022. After months of twists and turns and attacks on the platform, he ended up acquiring it for $44 billion.
The richest man in the world then renamed it X and used it extensively to support Donald Trump, in addition to his large financial contributions to the Republican.
Donald Trump, who will be president of the United States again in a week, tried to ban TikTok at the end of his first term, in 2020, also in the name of national security. He has since returned to his positions, claiming to have a “weak” for the application and its young audience.
Besides electric cars and rockets, Elon Musk has co-founded other companies, including xAI, the most recent, specializing in generative artificial intelligence (AI), which requires mountains of fresh data: social networks are ideal for powering AI models.
The entrepreneur has also gained political responsibilities. Donald Trump asked him to lead an external advisory mission to make massive savings in federal budgets.
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