U.S. President Donald Trump expressed openness on Tuesday to billionaire Elon Musk buying the popular social media app TikTok if the Tesla CEO wanted to pursue the acquisition. This comes after tensions over national security, with a law that would either force TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell its U.S. operations or face a ban, taking effect on Sunday.
TikTok, used by 170 million Americans, was temporarily offline ahead of the law’s enforcement, and it remained unavailable for download on Apple and Android devices as of Tuesday afternoon. Bloomberg News reported last week that Chinese officials were in talks about selling TikTok’s U.S. operations to Musk, although the company denied these discussions.
In response to a question about Musk’s interest in purchasing TikTok, Trump said, “I would be, if he wanted to buy it.” Trump added that he had met with TikTok’s major owners and suggested that Musk could buy it and give half of the company to the United States.
TikTok has faced criticism under the law passed by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden, with free speech advocates opposing the ban. The company disputes claims of Chinese influence, stating that its data is stored in the U.S. on Oracle’s cloud servers, and content moderation decisions for American users are made domestically.
Musk has long opposed a TikTok ban, citing concerns over free speech and the unbalanced business environment between the U.S. and China. Musk owns the social media platform X and criticized China for blocking its access while allowing TikTok to operate in the U.S.
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