Elon Musk could be China’s pick to buy TikTok, report says

Chinese officials have reportedly discussed selling TikTok's US operations to Elon Musk as the threat of a US ban looms.

Sources "familiar with the matter" told Bloomberg that Chinese officials would "strongly prefer" that ByteDance remain in control of TikTok US, but if TikTok's bid to get the Supreme Court to block the ban fails, ByteDance wants to be prepared with "contingency plans."

One of those supposed contingency plans would apparently see Musk operating TikTok as part of X (formerly Twitter) operations. Under that scenario, Musk's X would control TikTok US, sources said, and thus gain access to a massive trove of TikTok data that the US has alleged poses a grave national security risk if left under a Chinese-owned company's control.

It's unclear if Musk would even want to buy TikTok or have the bandwidth to do so, Bloomberg noted. TikTok could cost up ...