Beijing officials would rather have TikTok retain its ownership under parent company ByteDance Ltd. However, with the looming ban in the US market, they are contemplating selling the platform’s US operations to Elon Musk.
The United States is still discussing the potential TikTok ban. However, with the US Supreme Court judges hinting that they would uphold the law, a TikTok ban is more in sight.
The Supreme Court hinted it may not intervene to stop TikTok’s ban
TikTok has until January 19 to divest its US operations or face removal from app stores and servers nationwide.
The video-sharing platform sought intervention from the US Supreme Court, hoping to avoid the ban, basing its arguments on rights to free speech and expression.
The platform has consistently claimed that its removal from the US market would infringe on the rights of its 170 million American users to share content. However, the Supreme Court may be of little help to the platform.
On January 10, after listening to multiple oral arguments, most of the court’s judges signaled that US national security concerns take precedence over the free speech interests of companies and creators.
Beijing considers Elon Musk for TikTok’s acquisition
With the ban becoming more imminent, the Chinese government is considering having Elon Musk take over US operations. Officials have even suggested having Musk’s X merge with TikTok. Nevertheless, there has been no confirmation of any agreement reached between Beijing and the American billionaire.
The extent of ByteDance’s involvement in government discussions is still uncertain, as is whether Musk, TikTok, and ByteDance have engaged in talks about any potential deal.
TikTok’s US operations are worth about $40 billion to $50 billion. How Musk can finance such a deal remains an open question since he’s still repaying sizable loans after his Twitter acquisition.
Whether TikTok decides to sell its US service to Musk or any other individual or corporation, the Chinese government will have a say in the transaction.
While TikTok maintains that the Chinese government’s control over ByteDance only extends to its sister application, Douyin, Beijing’s export laws still restrict the sale of software algorithms to foreign parties.
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