Following the ban of the video-sharing app TikTok in the United States, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and owner of social media platform X, stated, “I have been against a TikTok ban…”
On January 19, TikTok, the popular Chinese video-sharing app, was shut down after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a law that required the app to be sold for it to remain operational in the United States. The law, enacted by the Biden administration, mandated that TikTok sever all ties with its parent company, ByteDance, due to national security concerns. However, ByteDance has refused to sell the app.
The X owner wrote, “In my opinion, TikTok should not be banned in the USA, even though such a ban may benefit the X platform. Doing so would be contrary to freedom of speech and expression. It is not what America stands for,” Musk said on X.
I have been against a TikTok ban for a long time, because it goes against freedom of speech.
That said, the current situation where TikTok is allowed to operate in America, but 𝕏 is not allowed to operate in China is unbalanced.
Something needs to change. https://t.co/YVu2hkZEVZ---Advertisement---— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 19, 2025
In his next post, he added, “I have been against a TikTok ban for a long time because it goes against freedom of speech. That said, the current situation, where TikTok is allowed to operate in America but X is not allowed to operate in China, is unbalanced. Something needs to change.”
TikTok, which has around 270 million American users and is one of the most popular social media platforms in the U.S., went offline just hours before a new law banning the app took effect. Users attempting to access the platform received a message saying, “You can’t use TikTok for now.”
Apple and Google removed TikTok from their app stores in the U.S., as required by the law that came into effect on January 19. President-elect Donald Trump has indicated he would “most likely” grant TikTok a 90-day reprieve from the ban.
President-elect Donald Trump stated that he would restore TikTok access in the U.S. through an executive order after his inauguration on Monday. However, he emphasized that he wants the popular social media app to be at least 50% owned by U.S. investors.
“I would like the United States to have a 50% ownership position in a joint venture. By doing this, we save TikTok, keep it in good hands, and allow it to stay up,” he wrote on Truth Social.
Trump added that the executive order would specify that there would be no liability for any company that helped prevent TikTok from going dark before his order.
