By Alimat Aliyeva

The Chinese company ByteDance Ltd. may sell the TikTok short video application to Elon Musk, Bloomberg reports, citing informed sources. This scenario could become reality if the U.S. Supreme Court upholds the ban on the platform, Azernews reports.

During a debate on January 10, American judges indicated that the probability of a TikTok ban is quite high. The initiator of the ban was U.S. President Joe Biden, who signed a law requiring Chinese-owned ByteDance to cease TikTok operations in the United States by January 19, 2025, after a decision made in April 2024.

Late last year, former President Donald Trump, who is running for re-election, called for a delay in banning TikTok, expressing his desire to "save" the platform. In response to this, the Chinese government discussed the possibility of Elon Musk taking control of TikTok US, a version of the platform tailored specifically for the United States, and merging it with his existing app, X (formerly Twitter).

However, a final decision on the sale of the app has not yet been made, Bloomberg notes. TikTok’s developers, as well as Elon Musk and Chinese authorities, declined to comment to the agency. When asked by CNBC about Bloomberg's report, a TikTok representative replied, "We cannot be expected to comment on pure fiction."

This potential sale raises intriguing questions about the future of TikTok and its place in the broader landscape of social media. If the sale were to go through, it would mark a significant shift in the tech industry, with Musk potentially gaining control over two of the world’s largest social media platforms, TikTok US and X. This could reshape the dynamics of digital advertising, data privacy debates, and the ongoing geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and China.