The Chinese government is considering a contingency plan involving Elon Musk acquiring TikTok\u2019s U.S. operations to prevent the app from being effectively banned, Bloomberg News reported on Monday.<\/p>\n
This strategy is among several options being explored by China as the U.S. Supreme Court deliberates whether to uphold a law requiring China-based ByteDance to divest TikTok\u2019s U.S. business by January 19, according to anonymous sources cited in the report.<\/p>\n
Should that deadline pass without compliance, third-party internet service providers could face penalties for supporting TikTok\u2019s operations in the United States, CNBC added.<\/p>\n
According to Bloomberg, the proposal would have Elon Musk manage both his current platform X and TikTok\u2019s U.S. operations. However, Chinese government officials have not yet decided whether to move forward with this preliminary plan.<\/p>\n
The report noted that it remains unclear if ByteDance is aware of the Chinese government\u2019s plans or of the discussions involving TikTok and Musk. Senior Chinese officials are reportedly weighing various contingency strategies for TikTok\u2019s future in the U.S. as part of broader talks involving President-elect Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
A TikTok spokesperson said in an email to CNBC, \u201cWe can\u2019t be expected to comment on pure fiction.\u201d X didn\u2019t immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
Last week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments regarding a law that could ban TikTok, signed by President Joe Biden in April. TikTok\u2019s legal team argued that the law infringes on the free speech rights of millions of U.S. users, while the U.S. government maintained that ByteDance\u2019s ownership of TikTok presents a national security risk.<\/p>\n
As the Supreme Court appears inclined to side with the government, TikTok might seek assistance from President-elect Trump when his second term begins on January 20. Although Trump supported a TikTok ban during his first administration, his stance has since shifted.<\/p>\n
Late last month, he called on the Supreme Court to intervene and delay the enforcement of Biden\u2019s ban, aiming to buy time for a potential \u201cpolitical resolution.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s stance on TikTok began to shift after his February meeting with billionaire Jeff Yass, a Republican megadonor and major investor in ByteDance who also holds a stake in the owner of Truth Social, Trump\u2019s social media company, CNBC reported.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, the outgoing Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler threatened to press charges against Tesla and Space X CEO Elon Musk if he does not comply with a monetary demand.<\/p>\n
The billionaire entrepreneur posted a letter that showed he could face charges that date back to his purchase of Twitter, now known as X, in 2022 with the caption, \u201cOh Gary, how could you do this to me?\u201d<\/p>\n
A letter from Musk\u2019s attorney, Alex Spiro, to Gensler said that the X boss had been informed that he had to \u201cagree within 48 hours to either accept a monetary payment or face charges on numerous counts.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\nThe attorney said that the demand was regarding \u201ccertain purchases, sales and disclosures of Twitter shares\u201d and was another in a long line of what he said was \u201cmore than six years of harassment of Mr. Musk by the Commission.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe demand to know who directed these actions \u2014 whether it was you or the White House,\u201d he said in the letter.<\/p>\n
The SEC responded to the CEO\u2019s claims in a message to The New York Post.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is the policy of the SEC to conduct investigations on a confidential basis to preserve the integrity of its investigative process,\u201d it said. \u201cThe SEC therefore does not comment on the existence or nonexistence of a possible investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Chinese government is considering a contingency plan involving Elon Musk acquiring TikTok\u2019s U.S. operations to prevent the app from being effectively banned, Bloomberg News reported on Monday. This strategy is among several options being explored by China as the U.S. Supreme Court deliberates whether to uphold a law requiring China-based ByteDance to divest TikTok\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":979,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fnews06.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fnews06.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fnews06.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnews06.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnews06.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=978"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fnews06.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":980,"href":"https:\/\/fnews06.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/978\/revisions\/980"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnews06.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fnews06.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnews06.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fnews06.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}