China is considering selling the TikTok shares held by ByteDance to Elon Musk as a possible way out of the ban that the United States Administration wants to impose on the social network, according to a Bloomberg exclusive that cites anonymous Beijing officials. TikTok is currently on the tightrope and is awaiting the Supreme Court’s decision on whether it endorses that the federal government ban the video platform app on US territory. The alternative posed by the controversial law is for ByteDance to sell its TikTok shares to a North American company. The operation could cost up to 50,000 million euros.
Although Beijing prefers that ByteDance remain the parent company of TikTok, the officials cited by Bloomberg have been developing contingency plans for some time in case the US Supreme Court’s decision ends up harming ByteDance’s interests. Musk appears in the pools as one of the most likely options to get out of the alley and, in addition, establish relations with the Administration led by Donald Trump.
The scenario that China evaluates is that X (Musk’s former Twitter and main social network) acquire ByteDance’s stake in TikTok and take control of the video platform in the United States. Musk could execute a double strategy with the two social networks. TikTok has 170 million active users in the US, which is equivalent to half of the North American population, and it is the platform that is experiencing the greatest growth in the country, above all, among adolescents. TikTok could expand X’s advertiser base and even integrate the generative algorithms being developed by xAI, also owned by Musk.
Freedom of expression vs. national security
According to Bloomberg, it is not confirmed how much knowledge the protagonists of this story have or whether representatives of China, ByteDance, TikTok and Elon Musk have sat at the table to discuss this possibility. The South African himself said in April that he supported the platform remaining available: “In my opinion, TikTok should not be banned in the US, even though such a ban could benefit platform he wrote on his X account. “Doing so would be contrary to freedom of expression. It is not what the United States stands for.”
The attack on freedom of expression is the main argument that ByteDance used before the Supreme Court to appeal the controversial law. The federal government and Congress believe, however, that Chinese possession of a social network with as much weight as TikTok is a threat to the national security of the United States.
China believes that the future of TikTok tied to ByteDance could have its days numbered and they distrust the possible election of the Supreme Court, which in the appeal session seemed to opt for the argument of national security. On the other hand, according to sources cited by Bloomberg, they believe that the delivery of TikTok may mean a gesture of reconciliation against Donald Trumpdays before he formally enters the White House, and his main benefactor, Elon Musk.
The search engine, the vault key
The power of TikTok lies in its search algorithm on which the video platform has spread like wildfire across the digital landscape. China owns significant stakes that give it a say in ByteDance. Furthermore, Beijing’s regulation prohibits exporting software algorithms without its permission, so The Asian Government has the last word facing a plausible sale to Musk.
According to Bloomberg analysts, TikTok could be valued between 40,000 and 50,000 million euros (39,000-49,000 million euros). When Musk bought Twitter after long litigation in 2022, spent 44 billion dollars (43,000 million euros) thanks to a syndicated loan that the company is still paying. However, the wealth of the richest man in the world has doubled since then and has the protection of Trump, who could facilitate the acquisition with tailored regulation.
If the operation is carried out, the main social networks in the country would be under the tutelage of two technology entrepreneurs: Mark Zuckerberg, owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, and Musk himself, who would be the owner of X and TikTok. Zuckerberg announced a few days ago that he would end the news verification program that he had associated with his social networks and would apply a community rating system similar to YouTube (owned by Alphabet, owner of Google), reddit (Condé Nast) and LinkedIn (Microsoft).
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