US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday (January 21) that he was open to the idea of Elon Musk buying short video sharing app TikTok. The app has recently been banned in the US but Trump has signed an executive order delaying implementation of the ban by 75 days.
"I would be, if he wanted to buy it," said Trump when reporters asked him if he would be fine with Elon Musk buying TikTok. He was quoted by Reuters.
"I have met with owners of TikTok, the big owners," he added. "So, what I am thinking about saying to somebody is 'buy it and give half to the United States of America.'"
Local media reports said that on Tuesday TikTok was unavailable for download on Android and Apple devices.
About 170 million Americans use TikTok. A US law passed recently mandated that ByteDance, the Chines company that owns TikTok, must sell it. This was due to US concerns that the Chinese company may misuse data of millions of American users.
As per Bloomberg, the company has held preliminary discussions about Musk buying US operations of TikTok. However, the company has denied that.
TikTok ban in the US has elicited reactions from free speech advocates who say that the Chinese threat is mis-stated because TikTok's content recommendation engine and user data are stored in US on servers managed by Oracle. They also say that the content moderation decisions affecting American users are also made in the US.
