'Cesspool of lies': Critics groan as Musk floated to buy TikTok

Social media users collectively groaned over a new report that Chinese officials are weighing their options in light of a looming ban on TikTok — including having tech billionaire Elon Musk buy the popular social media app's U.S. operation.

People familiar with the matter told Bloomberg News on Monday evening that officials in Beijing would prefer that the massively popular app — which has about 1 billion monthly active users worldwide — remain owned by ByteDance. However, In April 2024, Congress passed legislation, citing national security concerns, that was signed into law by President Joe Biden giving ByteDance nine months to sell the app to a US-approved buyer.

The legislation could lead to a nationwide ban if the company isn't sold by Jan. 19 — a day before President-elect Donald Trump is set to return to the Oval Office.

The company has appealed to the Supreme Court, which signaled last week they plan to allow the ban to take effect.

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Senior officials in China have debated how to proceed, according to the report, specifically how to work with the Trump administration. Among those ideas: selling to Musk, who spent about $250 million to support Trump and who has been tapped to co-spearhead the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, tasked with slashing trillions out of the federal budget.

One proposal includes having Musk's social media site X take control of TikTok US, according to the report.

Musk has said TikTok ought to remain available in the U.S.

“In my opinion, TikTok should not be banned in the USA, even though such a ban may benefit the X platform,” he wrote on X. “Doing so would be contrary to freedom of speech and expression. It is not what America stands for.”

Critics of the idea bemoaned that Musk could gain control over two powerful social media companies.

Musk famously bought Twitter — before rebranding it as X — for $44 billion. Recent estimates by Fidelity show X is currently valued at approximately $9.4 billion, a significant decrease of nearly 80 percent.

"Because of course," wrote George Pearkes, a macro strategist at Bespoke. He added: "Big trial ballon energy."

"TikTok would eat Musk for breakfast and still want seconds," chided Carl T. Bergstrom, a biology professor at the University of Washington.

"So we would go from TikTok being owned by the Chinese to someone born outside the U.S. using it as a weapon—just like they’ve turned this hellhole into a cesspool of lies. Misinformation will be the death of this nation," lamented Chris D. Jackson, a Democratic strategist, on X.

"It will be amazing if Biden and the Democrats got TikTok banned bc they believed it posed natsec risks and influenced US public opinion only for it to be sold to Elon, who will explicitly tweak the algorithm to suit his business and conservative political goals…" wrote Max Tani, media editor at Semafor.

"Can Elon Musk do for TikTok what he did for Twitter (kill it)??" asked podcaster Casey Newton.