During a press conference at the White House on January 21, where an initiative to create a new generation of data centers for AI was announced, Donald Trump said that he was ready for his friends Elon Musk or Larry Ellison to buy TikTok. This was reported by The Verge.
“Larry, let’s negotiate in front of the media,” Trump said at a press conference with Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, SoftBank CEO and OpenAI CEO. “What I’m thinking about saying to somebody is, buy it, and give half to the United States of America. Half, and we’ll give you the permit. And they’ll have a great partner, the United States.”
It is still not entirely clear how this will work, or how the US will be able to legally manage the platform for expression without violating the First Amendment. However, this is one of the first examples of how Silicon Valley's ties to Trump may play out over the next four years.
By the way, rumors about Elon Musk's possible purchase of TikTok emerged on the eve of the inauguration of the new US president. But Musk has not officially commented on this information.
As a reminder, on his first day in office, Donald Trump signed an executive order postponing the ban on TikTok for 75 days. Despite this, TikTok remains unavailable in the Apple and Google app stores.