By Steve Holland and Kanishka Singh
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he was open to billionaire Elon Musk buying social media app TikTok if the chief executive of Tesla (NASDAQ: ) wanted to do so.
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT
The short video app used by 170 million Americans was temporarily shut down for users shortly before a law took effect on Sunday requiring its Chinese owner ByteDance to sell it on national security grounds or face a ban.
Bloomberg News reported last week that Chinese officials were in preliminary talks about the potential option of selling TikTok’s United States operations to Musk, although the company denied this.
On Monday, Trump signed an executive order seeking a 75-day delay in implementing the law, which took effect after US officials warned there was a risk of Americans’ data being misused under ByteDance’s Chinese parent company.
TikTok remained unavailable for download on Apple (NASDAQ: ) and Android devices in the United States on Tuesday afternoon.
KEY QUOTATIONS
“I would be, if he wanted to buy it,” Trump told reporters Tuesday when asked if he was open to Musk buying the platform.
“I met with the owners of TikTok, the big owners,” Trump added. “So what I’m thinking about saying to someone is ‘buy it and give half to the United States of America’.”
CONTEXT
Free speech advocates opposed the ban on TikTok under a bill passed by the US Congress and signed by former President Joe Biden.
The company says U.S. officials have misrepresented its ties to China, claiming its content recommendation engine and user data are stored in the United States on cloud servers operated by Oracle (NYSE: ), while content moderation decisions affecting US users are also brought to the US.
Musk, who spent more than $250 million to help Trump win the presidential election in November, said there was an “unbalanced” business environment between the US and China.
“I’ve been against banning TikTok for a long time, because it’s against freedom of speech. However, the current situation where TikTok is allowed to operate in America but X is not allowed to operate in China is unbalanced,” Musk, who owns the social media platform X, said. during the weekend.
