TikTok has known as a report that China is contemplating permitting a sale of the social media firm’s US operations to Elon Musk “pure fiction.”
The agency’s feedback got here in response to a report by Bloomberg that Chinese language officers are weighing an possibility that might see its enterprise in America being bought to the world’s richest particular person if the US Supreme Courtroom upholds a ban on the app.
Supreme Courtroom justices are as a consequence of rule on a legislation that set a 19 January deadline for TikTok to both promote its US operations or face a ban within the nation.
TikTok has repeatedly mentioned that it’s going to not promote its US operation.
“We won’t be anticipated to touch upon pure fiction,” a TikTok spokesperson instructed BBC Information.
Bloomberg reported, citing folks accustomed to the matter, that one potential situation being thought of by Chinese language officers would see Musk’s X social media platform take management of TikTok’s US operations.
X didn’t instantly reply to a BBC request for remark.
Musk is a close ally of US president-elect Donald Trump, who is ready to return to the White Home on 20 January.
Final month, Trump urged the Supreme Court to delay its resolution till he takes workplace to allow him to hunt a “political decision”.
His lawyer filed a authorized temporary with the court docket that claims Trump “opposes banning TikTok” and “seeks the flexibility to resolve the problems at hand by political means as soon as he takes workplace”.
That got here per week after Trump met TikTok’s chief government, Shou Zi Chew, at his Mar-a-Lago property in Florida.
On Monday, two Democratic lawmakers, Senator Edward Markey and Consultant Ro Khanna, additionally known as on Congress and the President Joe Biden to increase the 19 January deadline.
Throughout a Supreme Courtroom listening to final week, justices appeared inclined to uphold the legislation and persist with the deadline.
Throughout almost three hours of arguments, the 9 justices returned repeatedly to the nationwide safety issues that gave rise to the legislation.
The Biden administration has argued that with no sale, TikTok may very well be utilized by China as a instrument for spying and political manipulation.
The corporate has repeatedly denied any affect by the Chinese language Communist Occasion and has mentioned the legislation to ban it within the US violates the First Modification free speech rights of its customers.
