Video-sharing platform dismisses report claiming Chinese government is considering sale to tech billionaire.
TikTok has dismissed as “pure fiction” a report claiming that the Chinese government is considering the platform’s sale to Elon Musk to avoid a ban in the United States.
Bloomberg News on Tuesday reported that Chinese officials are in preliminary talks about the potential sale to avoid a ban scheduled to take effect if China-based owner ByteDance does not sell off its US operation by January 19.
The report, which 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 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.
TikTok did not immediately respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment, but a spokesperson was quoted telling the BBC, HuffPost and Variety: “We can’t 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.
