Chinese authorities are considering selling TikTok’s US business to businessman Elon Musk if the short video service fails to challenge a ban on the use of its application in the US, Bloomberg reports, citing informed sources.
The sources emphasize that the Chinese government wants to keep TikTok under the control of its parent company ByteDance Ltd. The appeal against the ban is being considered by the US Supreme Court, but it is likely that the judges will uphold the ban.
Pending the decision, Chinese officials have begun discussing other options for TikTok’s US business. One option involves the participation in the deal of Musk, who is a close supporter of US President-elect Donald Trump. Musk also has a good reputation in China, where the largest plant of his car company Tesla is located.
According to sources, in one of the possible scenarios, control over TikTok’s US operations could go to Company X (formerly Twitter). The number of TikTok users in the US exceeds 170 million, and the acquisition of the service could help X attract advertisers. In addition, Musk has founded a separate company in the field of artificial intelligence, xAI, and it can find application for the huge amount of data generated by TikTok.
Sources note that the discussions are preliminary and no decisions have been made yet. It is also unclear how aware ByteDance is of the Chinese government’s plans, and whether ByteDance, TikTok, and Musk have had any talks about a possible deal.
Elon Musk, ByteDance, and TikTok did not respond to Bloomberg’s requests for comment, nor did representatives of China’s Cybersecurity Administration and Ministry of Commerce.
TikTok’s U.S. operations could be valued at $40-50 billion, according to Bloomberg Intelligence analysts. This is a significant amount of money even for the richest man in the world, and it is unclear how Musk could pay for such a deal. He acquired Twitter in 2022 for $44 billion and is still paying off the debt taken out to finance the deal.
Bloomberg also notes that TikTok’s business in the United States is a valuable asset that other players are also claiming. In particular, billionaire Frank McCourt and investor Kevin O’Leary have previously announced their intention to buy the business. Other contenders may include Microsoft Corp. and Oracle Corp. which is TikTok’s longtime partner in the technology sector.
Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk has lost the top spot on the list of the world’s richest people due to a decline in his company’s shares, MarketWatch reports.
The leader in the ranking for the first time since the end of 2021 is the founder and former head of online retailer Amazon.com Inc. Jeff Bezos, whose fortune is estimated at $200 billion. Musk ranks second with $198 billion. Frenchman Bernard Arnault, the head of LVMH, is in third place with a fortune of $197 billion.
In 2024, Musk’s fortune decreased by $31 billion, while Bezos gained $23.4 billion, despite selling about 50 million Amazon shares worth about $8 billion. He still owns about 9% of the company’s securities.
Tesla’s shares fell 7.2% on Monday, and since the beginning of the year, the electric car maker’s capitalization has fallen by about a quarter. Amazon’s stock price fell by 0.4% the day before, and since the beginning of this year, the company’s market value has increased by 17%.
Elon Musk regained the first place in the list of the richest people in the world following the rise in the value of shares of Tesla Inc.
Thus, Musk again surpassed French billionaire Bernard Arnault, who was ahead of him on the list for two months, notes Bloomberg.
Tesla papers went up almost 70% from the beginning of the current year, its value rose 5.5% on Monday to $207.63. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires index, Musk’s fortune, which stood at $137 billion at the beginning of 2023, increased to $187.1 billion.
The fortune of Arnault, who controls luxury goods maker LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, is $185.3 billion.
American billionaire Elon Musk has unveiled the “Burnt Hair” perfume with the smell of burnt hair, which is sold on the website of his company Boring Co. priced at $100 per bottle.
Musk, who is the head of Tesla, changed his Twitter status to “Fragrance Seller” and wrote that he had already sold 10 thousand bottles of perfume, that is, a total of $ 1 million.
Earlier, the billionaire reported that Boring will introduce a men’s fragrance that will help a person “stand out from the crowd.” He joked on Twitter that it was inevitable for a man with his last name to enter the perfume business (Musk means “musk” in English).
“Why did I even resist this for so long?” he wrote.
Last week, Musk sent a letter to Twitter executives offering to complete the acquisition of the company for $44 billion, although he had previously refused this intention.
“Please buy my perfume so I can buy Twitter,” he wrote on his page on Wednesday.
The billionaire has repeatedly released playful products that his fans buy as collectibles. For example, in 2018, Boring Co., an underground tunneling company, produced 20,000 hand-held flamethrowers and raised $10 million to fund its operations.
He also offered his fans to buy Tesla-branded “short shorts” as a prank on traders who were “short” in the shares of the electric car maker. In addition, he produced tequila “Tesla”.
Twitter management intends to sue Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who announced his refusal to buy the social network, Bret Taylor, chairman of the company’s board of directors, said.
“Twitter’s board of directors is committed to closing the deal at the price and terms agreed with Mr. Musk and plans to take legal action to enforce the merger agreement. We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware court,” Taylor tweeted.
Musk previously notified Twitter that he was pulling out of the purchase deal. “Mr. Musk is terminating the Merger Agreement because Twitter is in material breach of multiple provisions of the Agreement,” a spokesman for the company said in a letter.
Elon Musk and his companies Tesla Inc. and Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) filed a $258 billion lawsuit in connection with their promotion of the Dogecoin cryptocurrency, reports Bloomberg.
The plaintiff – Keith Johnson – alleges that Musk and his companies created a fraudulent scheme to inflate the value of Dogecoin.
“Defendants falsely claimed that the Dogecoin cryptocurrency is a prudent investment even though it has no value at all,” the lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court says.
Johnson, who claims he “lost money because of the crypto pyramid created by the defendants,” expects his lawsuit to become a class action, with other people who have also lost money trading Dogecoin since April 2019 joining him.
In addition to damages, he demands that the court prohibit Musk and his companies from promoting Dogecoin.
The cryptocurrency, created in 2013 in honor of the Internet meme Doge with a Shiba Inu dog, is trading on Thursday at $0.057, since the beginning of this year its rate has fallen by 67%. Last year, the value of Dogecoin rose to $0.74.
Musk has previously stated that Tesla and SpaceX will sell their merchandise for Dogecoin. In January, he suggested that McDonald’s start accepting the cryptocurrency, tweeting that he would “eat the Happy Meal on TV if McDonald’s accepts Dogecoin.”
