BREAKING: Chinese officials consider allowing Elon Musk to buy TikTok: report

Bloomberg cited unnamed sources in their assessment that Chinese officials may consider selling the app to Musk. ByteDance refused to comment on "pure fiction" when Forbes broached the topic and asked for comment.

The deadline for ByteDance to divest or for TikTok to sell to a US owner is January 19. The company has already been making plans to shutter the app in the event that no amicable solution is reached. Musk bought Twitter and renamed it X in 2022 after being disillusioned with content restrictions on the site. It was after The Babylon Bee's account was suspended for calling Biden's Asst. HHS Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine a man that Musk's ire was raised significantly enough to engage in a takeover of the platform. He eventually made the deal for $44 billion. Levine underwent sex change after fathering children and presents himself as a woman.

ByteDance said that under no circumstances would they allow the algorithm that fuels TikTok to be sold to a US company and asked the Supreme Court to hear the case on an emergency basis. The Court heard oral arguments in the case last week. TikTok's attorney's claimed that the ban was against the First Amendment as it was preventing the company from speaking in the US, while prosecutors for the DOJ argued that required divestment for national security reasons is not a free speech issue. In their questioning, the justices appeared to side with the government and not TikTok.

TikTok attorneys alleged that the restriction from the Biden administration was content-based, while attorneys for the government said that it was not a content-based ban. Justice Clarence Thomas indicated that there was no restriction on those who were making the speech, i.e. the creators on the TikTok platform. TikTok's attorneys said that because ByteDance would not fork over the algorithm to a new owner, TikTok's free speech, i.e. the algorithm, is being impeded by the government through the forced divestiture.

The Supreme Court has not issued a ruling in the case and it is unclear if one will be issued prior to the January 19 deadline, which is the day before President-elect Donald Trump is sworn in to serve as the 47th president. Trump, who aimed to ban the app during his first term in office as the 45th president, has since had a change of heart for the app, which he made great use of during the campaign season. Trump had urged the Court to pause the ban.