Boma Achenimie South African billionaire and Chairman of the popular microblogging site, X, Elon Musk has said that he was not interested in buying the short-video app, TikTok.
Sunday Telegraph recalls that the United States (US) government under the leadership of former President, Joe Biden has been trying to ban TikTok over national security concerns with its Chinese owner, ByteDance.
Folowing the court ruling, ByteDance was given the January deadline to sell the US assets of TikTok or face a ban after the lawmakers expressed their concerns that the app poses national security risks because China could compel the company to share the data of its US users.
However, speaking on the acquisition on Sunday, Musk said he had not put in a bid for TikTok, a week after President Donald Trump said he was open to Musk buying the ByteDance-owned app if he wanted to do so.
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“I don’t have any plans for what I would do if I had TikTok. I’m not chomping at the bit to acquire TikTok, I do not acquire companies in general, it’s quite rare,” Musk said.
The billionaire stated that he does not use the short video app personally, and was not familiar with the app’s format, adding that his billion-dollar acquisition of social media platform Twitter, now called X, was unusual.
Recall that President Trump signed an executive order seeking to delay the enforcement of a ban on the popular short-video app that was slated to be shuttered on January 19.
Trump has said that he was in talks with multiple people over TikTok’s purchase and would likely have a decision on the app’s future this month.
