China Considers Selling US TikTok to Elon Musk

Chinese officials are considering selling TikTok's US business to billionaire Elon Musk, as the video-sharing company faces an American law forcing an imminent Chinese divestiture.

According to the report, one option under consideration in Beijing is for Musk's social media business X to buy TikTok from Chinese owner ByteDance and merge it into the platform once known as Twitter.

The analysis projected that TikTok's US operations were worth between $40 and $50 billion.

Last year, the US government approved legislation requiring TikTok's ByteDance to sell or shut down the highly popular platform. It goes into effect on Sunday, the day before President-elect Donald Trump takes office.

The US government claims TikTok allows Beijing to collect data, spy on people, and propagate propaganda. China and ByteDance firmly refute the allegations.

TikTok has challenged the statute, filing an appeal with the US Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments on Friday.

During the hearing, a majority of the nine-member bench's conservative and liberal justices looked skeptical of TikTok's lawyer's assertions that forcing a sale violated free speech rights guaranteed by the First Amendment.

Bloomberg described Beijing's examination of a potential Musk transaction as "still preliminary," pointing out that Chinese officials had yet to reach an agreement on how to proceed.

It added it was unclear how much ByteDance was aware of the Chinese government's plans.

TikTok did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment, but a spokeswoman told Variety, "We can't be expected to comment on pure fiction."

Musk is a strong ally of Trump and is likely to play a prominent role in Washington during the next four years.

He also runs the electric car business Tesla, which has a major manufacturing in China and regards the country as one of its largest markets.

Trump has regularly threatened to impose further tariffs on Chinese imports, escalating a trade conflict that began during his first term and was fully supported, and in some cases augmented, by departing President Joe Biden.