By Gursimran Mehar
(Reuters) – Billionaire Elon Musk said that he was not interested in purchasing TikTok, the popular short-video app that the United States has been trying to ban over national security concerns with its Chinese owner ByteDance.
Musk’s comments, made in late January, were released online Saturday by The WELT Group, a part of the German media company Axel Springer SE, which hosted a summit, where the Tesla chief joined the conference via video.
“I have not put in a bid for TikTok,” Musk said a week after U.S. President Donald Trump said he was open to Musk buying the ByteDance-owned app if he wanted to do so.
“I don’t have any plans for what I would do if I had TikTok,” Musk said, adding that he does not use the short video app personally, and was not familiar with the app’s format.
“I’m not chomping at the bit to acquire TikTok, I do not acquire companies in general, it’s quite rare,” Musk said, adding that his billion-dollar acquisition of social media platform Twitter, now called X, was unusual.
“I usually build companies from scratch,” Musk said.
The Republican president signed an executive order seeking to delay the enforcement of a ban on the popular short-video app that was slated to be shuttered on January 19.
ByteDance was given the January deadline to sell the U.S. assets of TikTok or face a U.S. ban, following lawmakers’ concerns that the app poses national security risks because China could compel the company to share the data of its U.S. users. TikTok has denied that it has or ever would share U.S. user data.
Apple and Google have not reinstated TikTok to their app stores since a U.S. law took effect. TikTok said on Friday that it was allowing U.S. Android users to download and connect to the app through package kits on its website, in an effort to circumvent restrictions on the popular platform in the country.
Trump has said that he was in talks with multiple people over TikTok’s purchase and would likely have a decision on the app’s future this month. It has about 170 million American users.
This week, the president signed an executive order to create a sovereign wealth fund within the year, saying it could potentially buy TikTok.
ByteDance has previously denied any plans to sell TikTok.
Trump saving TikTok represents a reversal in stance from his first term in office when he unsuccessfully sought to ban the app over concerns the company was sharing Americans’ personal information with the Chinese government.
More recently, Trump has said he has “a warm spot in my heart for TikTok,” crediting the app with helping him win over young voters in the 2024 presidential election.
ByteDance and TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours.
(Reporting by Gursimran Kaur in Bengaluru)
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