President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he was open to billionaire Elon Musk buying social media app TikTok — if the Tesla CEO wanted to do so.
“I would be, if he wanted to buy it,” Trump told reporters.
Trump signed an executive order on Monday that gives the Chinese-owned app a 75-day reprieve from the sell-or-ban law that went into effect Sunday.
“I met with the owners of Tiktok, the big owners, it’s worthless if it doesn’t get a permit,” Trump said. “It’s worth like a trillion dollars. So what I’m thinking about saying to somebody is, ‘buy it and give half to the United States of America, and we’ll give you the permit, and they’ll have a great partner.”
Musk’s name has previously been floated by officials as a possible buyer because of the mogul’s close ties to China.
Trump made the comments while announcing a $500 billion AI infrastructure project involving Oracle, Softbank and OpenAI, led by Musk nemesis Sam Altman.
The president also said he would be open to the app being bought by Larry Ellison, Oracle’s billionaire co-founder.
