After years of rejecting the idea of a sale of TikTok’s US assets to an American buyer in order to avert a ban, China and ByteDance may have found an owner they could live with: Elon Musk.

BEIJING: Chinese Vice President Han Zheng met with tech tycoon Elon Musk and urged US firms to "seize the opportunity" to deepen economic ties with China, Beijing's state media said on Monday (Jan 20).

Elon Musk is being eyed by Chinese authorities as a potential buyer of TikTok. Newsweek's live blog is closed.

Elon Musk is finally sharing his thoughts on the TikTok ban. On Saturday night, the app briefly went offline in the United States, months after the

Joe' host Joe Scarborough expressed on Thursday's show that he has "always been horrified" by the Chinese-owned app TikTok and said Elon Musk should not be the person to take over American operations for the social platform.

Musk acquired X (then Twitter) in October 2022 after a highly publicized back and forth, in which he gave up on the acquisition midway but ultimately closed the deal, paying $44 billion for the platform. X's user base has been on a decline since the acquisition, and advertising revenues have plummeted.

Chinese officials reportedly want ByteDance Ltd. to remain the owners of TikTok but is in discussion on how to work with the Trump Administration.

TikTok denied a report that China is exploring a sale of the app to Elon Musk to keep TikTok operational in America amid a looming U.S. ban.

Chinese officials are looking into selling the U.S. operations of TikTok to Elon Musk if the social media firm ultimately gets banned here, according to reports.

Chinese officials and ordinary people are hopeful but on edge as Donald Trump returns to the White House, eager to avoid a repeat of the bruising trade war that drove a wedge between the economic superpowers during his first term.

Chinese Vice President Han Zheng met with tech tycoon Elon Musk and urged US firms to "seize the opportunity" to deepen economic ties with China.