Officials of the Beijing-based video-sharing platform TikTok refuted speculations circulating on the internet that it plans to relinquish its ownership to Tesla founder Elon Musk.
TikTok denied the rumors saying there is no truth to the potential sale of the popular social media platform to the “Doge Father” so it could continue its operations in the United States.
‘Pure Fiction’
Representatives from the Beijing-based social media company dismissed all the buzz going around the internet and social media about TikTok looking into the option of letting Musk take over the platform as a way of working around the regulatory hurdles it is facing in the US.
“We can’t be expected to comment on pure fiction,” a company representative said in an interview.
According to a BBC news report, Chinese government officials stood firm in their decision not to give up their control of the platform and sell the platform to an American entrepreneur for the sake of continuing its US operations.
Rumored Option
News reports said that officials in Beijing are allegedly weighing their options on how TikTok can continue to operate in the US as the platform faces an imminent ban in the country starting January 19.
A report published on Bloomberg cited that one of the options that Chinese officials are considering is selling the popular social media platform to the owner of X platform.
According to Bloomberg, Beijing officials have a strong preference for ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, to maintain its ownership of the famous video-sharing app. Although, the Chinese government is not ruling out the possibility of Musk taking over the social media platform.
Analysts said it remained unclear if these discussions with Chinese government officials involved Musk, X, TikTok, or ByteDance.
Elon Musk. Image: Newsweek
Saving TikTok
US President-elect Donald Trump has floated the idea of reversing the ban imposed on TikTok, saying that he prefers saving the Beijing-based platform.
Some reports said that Trump is making moves to delay the decision to be made by the Supreme Court about TikTok’s case on January 19 until he officially assumes the presidency.
“We’ll take a look at TikTok. I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok because I won youth by 34 points. And there are those that say that TikTok has something to do with it,” Trump said in December.
Musk, who is a known close advisor to Trump, has already expressed his opinion of not banning the video-sharing platform.
“In my opinion, TikTok should not be banned in the USA, even though such a ban may benefit the X platform. Doing so would be contrary to freedom of speech and expression. It is not what America stands for,” Musk said in an X post last April 2024.
Launched in 2013 as a joke based on the Shiba Inu “doge” meme, the digital token has a rather long history of relationship with the SpaceX CEO, who is affectionately known among Dogecoin followers as the “Doge Father.”
Featured image from CNN, chart from TradingView
