China considers selling TikTok to Elon Musk - Bloomberg

China considers selling TikTok to Elon Musk - Bloomberg

Kyiv  •  UNN

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Chinese officials are evaluating the option of selling TikTok's U.S. operations to Elon Musk if the company loses the lawsuit. A potential deal could include integration with the X platform and the use of data for xAI.

Chinese officials are evaluating a potential option that involves Elon Musk acquiring the US operations of TikTok if the company fails to fend off a controversial ban on the short-video app, according to people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg reports, UNN writes.

Details

People say that Beijing officials strongly prefer that TikTok remain in the possession of parent company ByteDance Ltd. and the company is challenging the ban by appealing to the US Supreme Court. But the justices made it clear during the January 10 arguments that they would likely uphold the law. Senior Chinese officials have already begun discussing contingency plans for TikTok as part of a larger discussion about how to work with the Donald Trump administration, one of which includes Musk, the people said.

A potential high-profile deal with one of Trump's closest allies has some appeal to the Chinese government, which is expected to have some influence on whether TikTok is eventually sold, the people said. Musk spent more than $250 million to support Trump's re-election and has been tapped to play an important role in making the government more efficient once the Republican takes office.

Under one scenario discussed by the Chinese government, Musk's X - formerly Twitter - would take control of TikTok US and run the business together, the people said. With more than 170 million users in the US, TikTok could support X's efforts to attract advertisers. Musk has also launched a separate artificial intelligence company, xAI, which could benefit from the vast amounts of data generated by TikTok.

Chinese officials have not yet reached a firm consensus on how to proceed, and their discussions are still preliminary, the people said. It's unclear how much ByteDance knows about the Chinese government's discussions and whether TikTok and Musk have been involved. It's also unclear whether Musk, TikTok and ByteDance have had any talks about the terms of any possible deal.

The talks in Beijing indicate that the fate of TikTok may no longer be under the exclusive control of ByteDance, the people said. Chinese officials recognize that they have difficult negotiations to conduct with the Trump administration over tariffs, export controls and other issues, and they see the TikTok talks as a potential area for reconciliation, they said.

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