Elon Musk swooping in to buy TikTok before a US ban is set to bite? It seems like a stretch, but it could also make some sense, Peter Kafka writes.

ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, is required to sell the app to a U.S.-based buyer or face a nationwide ban.

President Donald Trump said Tuesday he is open to Elon Musk buying TikTok, and floated a proposal that the United States jointly own half the company. “I would be, if he wanted to buy it, yes,” Trump told reporters at a White House event announcing a new AI infrastructure private sector partnership with tech leaders,

Could Elon Musk save TikTok in the US? China weighs option to sell the controversial TikTok social media app's US operations ahead of looming ban

A day after his inauguration, President Donald Trump said he'd be on board with Tesla CEO Elon Musk or Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison buying TikTok. In a Tuesday press briefing announcing a $500 billion artificial intelligence joint venture with Oracle, Trump said he was open to the idea of Ellison or Musk buying TikTok.

Musk acquired X (then Twitter) in October 2022 after a highly publicized back and forth, in which he gave up on the acquisition midway but ultimately closed the deal, paying $44 billion for the platform. X's user base has been on a decline since the acquisition, and advertising revenues have plummeted.

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he would be supportive of the world's richest man and his close aide, Elon Musk, buying TikTok "if he wanted to". Trump was asked if he would be open to the billionaire founder of Tesla buying the short-video platform facing a nationwide ban in the US after the Supreme Court last week upheld a law requiring TikTok to sever ties with its Chinese parent ByteDance.

President Donald Trump has said he would be open to Tesla CEO Elon Musk or Oracle chairman Larry Ellison buying TikTok as part of a joint venture with the

The timing of Meta’s announcement coincides with growing doubts about TikTok’s longevity in the US, particularly under the spectre of government scrutiny.

Some 500,000 people in the Netherlands left Elon Musk’s social media platform X last year, according to annual research by Newcom into Dutch social media habits. At the same time, TikTok, Snapchat and LinkedIn became more popular,

President Donald Trump has issued a “full and unconditional pardon” to Washington, DC, police lieutenant Andrew Zabavsky and officer Terence Sutton for their roles in the death of 20-year-old Karon Hylton-Brown, a case that drew protests on the heels of the murder of George Floyd.