Chinese officials are in preliminary talks about a potential sale of TikTok’s U.S. operations to Elon Musk. This deliberation comes amidst the chances of a ban for the well-inclined short-video app in the United States.
Beijing officials are keen that it should rather be retained under its parent company, ByteDance than having to sell off its U.S. branch. The final sell, however, might happen through a bidding arrangement or through arrangements by the government. This shows that the fate of TikTok is no longer entirely within ByteDance’s grasp.
ByteDance hosts the golden share of the Chinese government. This special stake will enable the government to yield some control over TikTok. One possibility is to acquire the operation and run it side by side with other services on his social media platform, X. However, officials are still deliberating and not yet at a point of clarity in their thinking on the best way to proceed.
To this effect-the situation being rather complicated-TikTok argued that the Chinese stake in ByteDance has not affected the conduct of company activities outside of China. This claim therefore leads to questions about how the app can manage working through challenges posed by regulators while remaining open to the scrutiny of both U.S. and Chinese authorities. As negotiations continue, the outcome may significantly affect the future of TikTok in America.