January 16, 2025, 8:21 am | Read time: 5 minutes
The conflict surrounding TikTok in the USA is currently coming to a head; the video platform is threatened with a ban in the United States. The sale of the US division could provide a solution. One name in particular is now on everyone’s lips: Elon Musk.
According to Statista, almost 1.7 billion people worldwide use the TikTok app. According to the company, 170 million, or a good 10 percent, of these are in the USA alone. Conversely, this also means that around half of the US population uses TikTok. Due to this market power and the fact that TikTok belongs to the Chinese group ByteDance, the app is at risk of being banned in the USA. To get around this, part of the company could reportedly be sold to tech billionaire Elon Musk. TECHBOOK provides an overview of the current situation.
The Dispute Between TikTok and the USA
Accusations of espionage have repeatedly been made against Bytedance in the past. ByteDance denies these and has repeatedly emphasized that it is independent of the Communist Party in China. The company refers to the fact that around 60 percent of TikTok investors come from Western countries and that the company is based in the Caribbean Cayman Islands. However, the headquarters are located in Beijing, which is why the parent company must also comply with the requirements of the local authorities, as reported by Tagesschau, among others.
A ban on installing TikTok on government devices has, therefore, been in force in the USA since 2022. The government went one step further under President Joe Biden and gave ByteDance an ultimatum. The company is to sell its US business by January 19, 2025. Otherwise, the app could be banned in the United States – TECHBOOK reported. Among other things, this would mean that app stores would no longer be allowed to offer the application.
TikTok did try to at least obtain a postponement of the deadline before the US Supreme Court, among others. However, the company failed. The deadline of January 19, five days from now, remains in place.
Elon Musk Could Take Over TikTok in the USA
According to consistent media reports from the USA, the solution could be Elon Musk. The tech billionaire owns SpaceX, Tesla, Starlink, and the news platform X (formerly Twitter), among others. And it is precisely because of this that Musk is now apparently in talks to buy the US division of TikTok.
As Bloomberg reports, there are currently discussions in Beijing about whether X could take over and operate the business locally. Musk would probably also have the financial means to make this possible. The fact that the Chinese government is involved in the sales considerations is due to the fact that the algorithm behind TikTok was developed in China. It requires special approval to be sold abroad. TikTok itself denied the rumors when asked by The Verge and spoke of “pure fiction.”
China is One of Musk’s Most Important Markets
Musk, for his part, has already expressed interest in TikTok. This is likely to have something to do with the app’s reach and the relevance of the Chinese market to Musk’s company, Tesla. Sales of Tesla e-cars there have recently declined significantly, mainly due to strong competition from China itself. Nevertheless, Musk apparently still has good business relations with the country and its government.
The entrepreneur also has a great influence on US politics. He donated 250 million US dollars to the election campaign of President-elect Donald Trump, who will be sworn in on January 20, 2025, one day after the TikTok deadline expires. In the future, he will also be actively involved in the Trump administration and head a kind of savings commission.
Musk’s political entanglements have brought him criticism, especially in the recent past. One accusation is that he uses an algorithm to favor certain political posts on his platform X, especially his own. He also commented on the current election campaign in Germany and held a conversation on X with the AFD’s leading candidate, Alice Weidel, in which several false statements were proven to have been spread.
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TikTok is Repeatedly Criticized
Social media plays an enormously important role these days. Many people use the platforms for communication and entertainment, but increasingly also as a source of news. A huge amount of users’ personal data is collected in the process, and it is precisely this that is the subject of the dispute that has been simmering for years.
If you look at the top 5 most popular apps worldwide, four of them can be counted in this category. WhatsApp is in 4th place, followed by Facebook and Instagram. All three apps belong to the same US company: Meta. However, TikTok is in first place, and it is a company that is not based in the USA or any other Western country but in China.
This is why many governments, as well as intelligence and data protection experts, view the app with suspicion and criticism. The USA, in particular, accuses TikTok and the Chinese company ByteDance of espionage on behalf of the Chinese government. Authorities around the world fear that the personal user data collected via TikTok will end up with the Chinese government and be used to manipulate public opinion, among other things.