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President Donald Trump has said he’s open to the possibility of either Tesla boss and “first buddy” Elon Musk or Oracle chief Larry Ellison buying TikTok.
The Supreme Court ruled last week in favour of a law blocking TikTok for US consumers after former president Joe Biden signed a legislation in April requiring its US operations either be sold or face a ban.
Biden administration officials had raised concerns that Americans’ personal data could be stolen and misused by the Chinese government if TikTok’s US operations remained under Chinese parent company ByteDance.
However, as one of his first moves as president, Mr Trump signed an executive order delaying the enforcement of the ban on the short video hosting platform by 75 days.
“I have met with owners of TikTok, the big owners. So, what I am thinking about saying to somebody is ‘buy it and give half to the United States of America,” Mr Trump told reporters at a press briefing on Tuesday.
When asked by a reporter if he was open to Mr Musk buying the platform, the president said: “I would be, if he wanted to buy it.”
“I’d like Larry to buy it, too,” he said, referring to the Oracle chief, according to CNN.
Despite the 75-day hold on the ban, companies delivering TikTok’s services in the US such as Apple and Google appear to be taking a cautious approach, with neither of their app stores offering any other ByteDance-affiliated apps on their digital marketplaces.
In total, before the end of my first full business day in Washington and the White House, we’ve already secured nearly $3 trillion of new investments in the United States. And probably, that’s going to be six or seven by the end of the week. pic.twitter.com/O8e0AZYxGJ
— President Donald J. Trump (@POTUS) January 22, 2025
The president said on Monday that he “could see” the US government taking a 50 per cent stake in TikTok, allowing the US to potentially police the site, adding “every rich person” has called him about acquiring the platform.
Mr Trump threatened to impose tariffs as high as 100 per cent on Chinese goods if Beijing refused to allow a sale of TikTok.
Meanwhile ByteDance has not commented on whether it plans to sell TikTok in the US, but Bloomberg reported that Chinese officials have considered the option of selling to Mr Musk.
Mr Musk emerged as one of the preisdent’s top financial backers during his campaign, spending over $250m to help him win the November election, and the Oracle boss has also been a longtime supporter of Mr Trump.
China’s foreign ministry said that business operations and acquisitions “should be independently decided by companies in accordance with market principles”.
“If it involves Chinese companies, China’s laws and regulations should be observed,” the foreign ministry’s spokesperson Mao Ning said on Monday.
