TikTok has denied a report that China was considering facilitating the sale of the app to tech billionaire Elon Musk in order to keep TikTok operational in America amid a looming US government ban.
On Monday, Bloomberg reported that “Chinese officials are weighing a potential option that would involve Elon Musk acquiring TikTok’s U.S. operations” if a U.S. law takes effect that would force parent company ByteDance to divest its stake in TikTok or ban actually applying in the United States. United States The Bloomberg report cites anonymous sources.
“We cannot be expected to comment on pure fiction,” a TikTok representative said in response to Varietyrequest for comment.
Musk, the world’s richest individual, did not comment on Bloomberg’s TikTok report. Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, bought Twitter in 2022 and later renamed it X.
Beijing-based ByteDance has not indicated it plans to sell its roughly 40% stake in TikTok to an entity or investor group that gets U.S. approval. Chinese officials had previously indicated that if ByteDance tried to sell its stake in TikTok, such a move would be blocked because it would represent a technology export.
More to come