TikTok calls reports of a potential Elon Musk takeover 'pure fiction'

Social media platform TikTok has called a Bloomberg report that it will be acquired by Elon Musk “pure fiction”.

People familiar with the matter

TikTok, the short form video sharing platform, is facing an uncertain future, as a Jan. 19 deadline for its parent company ByteDance to divest looms.

Should ByteDance fail to sell Tiktok by then, and the company’s appeal to the United States Supreme Court fails, TikTok will effectively be banned in the United States.

Bloomberg reported on Jan. 13 that “people familiar with the matter” said officials in China are considering options for the social media firm.

The officials are ostensibly government officials and were neither ByteDance nor TikTok staff.

Golden share

Bloomberg explained the China government’s involvement by reporting that it holds a “golden share” in TikTok that “gives it influence over the company’s strategy and operations”.

Because of this "golden share", China's government is expected to weigh in on a potential TikTok sale, although China’s reported preference is that TikTok not be sold or banned.

But should that not be an option, Bloomberg reported that one scenario that it has discussed and is amenable to is the selling of TikTok to Elon Musk’s X, formerly Twitter.

In this scenario, X would take control of TikTok’s U.S. operations, and in turn, it would benefit from the 170 million users that TikTok currently has in the U.S., and increase X’s appeal to advertisers.

Musk has also previously said he opposes the TikTok ban, even though his platform X might benefit from such a ban.

Pure fiction

But this speculation has been met with silence from official sources.

Musk, his representatives, and the Cyberspace Administration of China, China’s Ministry of Commerce and Foreign Ministry all declined to comment.

A ByteDance representative dismissed the speculation entirely, telling Variety: “We can’t be expected to comment on pure fiction.”

TikTok is now one of the U.S.'s and the world's most-used social media platforms, but its parent company, being based in China, has led to accusations of espionage.

But the prospect of an out-and-out ban dimmed during the hard-fought 2024 election campaign, when both candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris utilised the platform to solicit votes.

President-elect Trump had previously advocated for banning TikTok, but subsequently changed his mind.

He has now requested a delay on the ban, saying that he intends to "resolve the issue through political means" when he takes office.

But it looks increasingly likely that the U.S. Supreme Court will uphold the law, meaning that any action Trump will take will have to upend an already approved law, which might prove more difficult.

Meanwhile, U.S. TikTok users are displaying an alarming mastery of irony by abandoning TikTok ahead of the ban and moving to another Chinese company-owned short video platform, Xiaohongshu.

Top image via Unsplash & Donald Trump/Facebook