Video-sharing platform dismisses reports that the Chinese government is considering its sale to Tesla and SpaceX CEO.
TikTok has dismissed as “pure fiction” reports claiming that the Chinese government is considering allowing the sale of the platform to Elon Musk so it can continue operating in the United States.
Bloomberg News and The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that Chinese officials have discussed allowing the sale to the Tesla and SpaceX CEO to avoid a ban scheduled to take effect on Sunday unless China-based owner ByteDance sells off TikTok’s US operations.
While Beijing officials would “strongly prefer” that TikTok remains under the control of Beijing-based ByteDance, senior Chinese officials have begun to debate “contingency plans”, Bloomberg said.
Beijing has not communicated its contingency plans to ByteDance, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing unnamed people familiar with the discussions.
The Bloomberg report, which also cited unnamed people familiar with the matter, said one scenario being discussed would involve TikTok being combined into Musk’s social media platform X.
Bloomberg said it was not clear how Musk, the world’s richest person with an estimated net worth of more than $400bn, would carry out the transaction or if he would need to sell some of his other assets to complete any sale.
Responding to the reports on Tuesday, a TikTok spokesperson told Al Jazeera: “We cannot be expected to comment on pure fiction.”
The US Supreme Court is considering the constitutionality of the looming ban after TikTok filed a legal challenge against the related Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act.
During oral arguments on Friday, the court appeared to be inclined towards upholding the ban, with a majority of judges seeming unconvinced by TikTok’s argument that forcing a sale would be a violation of the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which upholds free speech.
Outgoing President Joe Biden signed the TikTok bill in April amid bipartisan concerns about alleged national security risks.
Democratic and Republican lawmakers have expressed concern that the platform could be used to hoover up Americans’ personal data and manipulate the public discourse.
President-elect Donald Trump, who is set to be inaugurated on January 20, pledged to “save” the platform during his presidential campaign, a reversal from his attempt to ban the app during his first term in office.
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