Elon Musk recently mentioned that he is “not chomping at the bit to acquire TikTok.”
Musk made these comments during an interview at the WELT Economic Summit on January 28. A video of the interview was released today.
This interview took place after President Donald Trump postponed a law mandating parent company ByteDance to sell TikTok or face a ban in the US. There were rumors of a possible deal where Musk (a key Trump ally) would acquire the app, as the Chinese government was reportedly open to it. Trump even expressed interest in Musk or Oracle chairman Larry Ellison acquiring TikTok and signed an executive order to establish a sovereign wealth fund that could invest in the app.
However, Musk denied any interest, plainly stating, “I have not put in a bid for TikTok.”
In the interview, he mentioned, “I don’t have any plans for what I would do if I had TikTok. I guess I would analyze the algorithm and determine its usefulness and potential benefits for humanity.”
He also stated that he does not “personally use TikTok” and is “not very familiar with it.” He sees his acquisition of Twitter (now X) as an exception in his career where he typically starts companies from scratch.
Musk’s discussion about TikTok occurred about 20 minutes into the interview, initially focusing on his plans for his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under the Trump administration. Musk and his allies have since taken control of federal agencies and accessed significant amounts of sensitive data.
“When it comes to government, the main challenge is overcoming bureaucracy,” he mentioned. “I believe bureaucracy is perhaps the ultimate boss battle. The ultimate boss battle is defeating entropy… The second toughest battle is defeating bureaucracy. That’s how challenging it is to improve government.”
