US President Donald Trump has expressed accessibility to it billionaire Elon Musk, user of social media platform X, acquiring the Chinese-owned game TikTok.
Trump’s remarks come amidst continued legal issues faced by TikTok in the United States, with a law mandating the company’s withdrawal from its Chinese user ByteDance or face a global restrictions.
When asked about chance of Musk, the country’s richest person and the mind of a budget-cutting program in the new leadership, buying the popular social media app Trump told writers,” I would be if he wanted to buy it,” as quoted by AFP.
In one of his earliest works upon returning to office, Trump ordered a 75-day wait on enforcing the law that would have successfully made TikTok outlawed in the country on Sunday, a day before his second term began. The executive order directed the counsel standard to delay the application of the law.
Trump also suggested a possible 50-50 relationship between” the United States” and ByteDance as a way to keep TikTok’s US functions, although he did not give details on how this agreement may be achieved.
The TikTok restrictions was enacted due to concerns over the Chinese government’s possible abuse of the game for spying or subtle influence on US common opinion through data collection and glad manipulation.
When asked if his phone had TikTok installed, which is banned on US government devices, Trump responded,” No, but… I think I’ll get it right now. “
TikTok briefly shut down in the United States late Saturday as the law’s sale deadline approached, leaving millions of users unable to access the app. However, with the tacit cooperation of its server provider, Oracle, TikTok restored service in the United States on Sunday, crediting Trump’s commitment to saving the app for making the reversal possible.
Despite the restoration of service, Apple and Google have not yet made the app available in their app stores, preventing new users from downloading TikTok and existing users from receiving updates. Companies that violate the law, which remains officially in effect, face penalties of up to$ 5,000 per user if the app is accessed.
Musk has been openly opposed to TikTok ban claiming it goes against freedom of speech. ” I have been against a TikTok ban for a long time, because it goes against freedom of speech. That said, the current situation where TikTok is allowed to operate in America, but � � is not allowed to operate in China is unbalanced. Something needs to change,” Musk had said on Sunday, soon after TikTok was back online after a brief shutdown.
Last week, a report suggesting that Chinese officials were considering selling the company’s US operations to Musk’s social media platform X was met with a firm denial from TikTok.
