What if Elon Musk took charge of buying TikTok after Twitter (X)?

Last year, the United States passed a law that requires Chinese entertainment giant ByteDance to sell TikTok by January 19, 2025, or face an outright ban in the country (which still counts more than 170 million users (or a little more than half the country) Earlier this week, the case reached the Supreme Court, which then heard arguments from both sides (the US government, which wishes to prevent). THE risks of espionage and manipulation by China, and the social network, which accuses the law of attacking freedom of expression). Despite everything, most judges showed that they were ready to authorize it. 'prohibition.

Bloomberg steps forward, TikTok denies negotiations

So, while ByteDance and the Chinese government have from the start opposed the sale of the American branch of TikTok to an American third party, now they seem to be open to the idea of ​​seeing an American get involved according to Bloomberg : Elon Musk. Confidential sources thus indicate to Bloomberg that “senior Chinese officials had already begun debating a contingency plan for TikTok as part of a discussion on how to work with Donald Trump's administration, including Elon Musk“. According to a scenario considered by the Chinese government, “X would take control of American TikTok and run both companies together“.

As a reminder, in 2020, Donald Trump had already tried to ban the Chinese social network from American soil, notably in the name of national security, without success. Since then, he has completely changed his mind, indicating that he has “a weakness” for the application dedicated to young audiences. Faced with the revelation of the Bloomberg report, some TikTok officials indicated that it was pure “fiction”. A spokesperson told the BBC: “you can't expect us to comment on fiction“. There are only a few days left before the ban on TikTok in the United States, which will be effective on January 19, unless an American actor buys the social network before then.