President Donald Trump has pushed back the TikTok ban by 75 days. Now, he’s floated the idea that either Elon Musk or Oracle head Larry Ellison could be potential buyers for the video platform.
The US has tried to ban TikTok due to “security concerns” regarding its data collection. However, in recent speeches and statements, US government officials have outright claimed it spreads “communist propaganda”. Others have drawn concerns about its connections to the CPC.
Trump hosted tech CEOs, including Oracle’s Ellison, in which he said he’d support the IT giant buying the app. Ellison said, “Sounds like a good deal to me Mr. President.”
When the original push to ban TikTok came around, Oracle was one of the companies in the running to snap it up. This would have been in partnership with Walmart, but it was shelved during the Biden administration.
Musk could be in the running to buy TikTok, if Trump even wants to save it
Musk, meanwhile, has been reported to be the Chinese government’s option to sell the platform.
The South African tech billionaire now heads DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) but is still actively heading X, formerly Twitter. He acquired it in 2022 for $44 billion. It’s now estimated that the platform has lost well over 75% of its value since his takeover. Criticisms have been levied against it for allowing and promoting far-right content.
Trump, who originally began pushing for the TikTok ban in his first term, has flip-flopped on saving the platform since the inauguration. The 47th President has recently called the platform “worthless”, but in the same thought, said if the deal goes through it could be “worth maybe $1 trillion” or “$500 billion”.
He had also posted to Truth Social, his clone of Twitter after he was banned from the platform, saying to “Save TikTok” before taking office.
Trump has also said that he believes the US government should get “half” of TikTok if the country finds a buyer to keep it live in the country. The app in the US has already begun to change rapidly since being brought back.
Users report and have presented evidence that the app is now pushing a more right-wing attitude in the US. Videos that might be left-leaning or sharing content surrounding world events like Gaza will now show a “Consider the accuracy of what you’re sharing” and some have reported that it’s blocking the sharing of certain content to more than one chat.