Elon Musk Confirms He's Not Making a Bid for TikTok
Elon Musk has explicitly stated he is not bidding for TikTok and has no plans to acquire the social media platform. Speaking at a summit in late January, Musk clarified that he neither uses TikTok personally nor is familiar with its format.
"I'm not chomping at the bit to acquire TikTok, I do not acquire companies in general. It is quite rare. I usually build companies from scratch," Musk explained. His history of founding companies includes SpaceX, The Boring Company, Neuralink, and xAI.
Elon Musk headshot during TikTok statement
Photo Credit: Debbie Rowe / CC by 4.0
Meanwhile, ByteDance is working to navigate potential App Store restrictions, recently developing a side-loadable version of TikTok for Android devices. This comes as President Biden signed a law that could impose $5,000 fines per instance of download delivered.
Several other parties have expressed interest in acquiring TikTok's U.S. operations, including:
- President Trump, who proposed including it in a new U.S. sovereign wealth fund
- Frank McCourt
- Kevin O'Leary
- Steven Mnuchin
- Perplexity AI
The platform's future remains uncertain as these potential buyers explore acquisition opportunities while ByteDance seeks ways to maintain TikTok's accessibility in the U.S. market.