China Discusses Sale of TikTok US to Musk as One Possible Option

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-14/china-discusses-sale-of-tiktok-us-to-musk-as-one-possible-option

by gnabgib • 2 years ago

31 35 2 years ago

bloomberg.com

gnabgib• 2 years ago

https://archive.is/op97J

feyman_r• 2 years ago

Didn’t see that one coming, though should have…

gagik_co• 2 years ago

I can’t even imagine how many weird decisions would get made in Elon’s TikTok. I guess this would have been a Twitter-style blessing in terms of killing it, if only its Facebook/YouTube-powered alternatives didn’t exist and we could get rid of short form video for good.

zfg• 2 years ago

I can’t even imagine how many weird decisions would get made in Elon’s TikTok.

The decisions will be to promote China and to never criticize the Chinese government.

Musk thinks China rocks and America is complacent and entitled, especially New Yorkers and Californians: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/31/tesla-ceo-elon-musk-china-ro...

Musk advocates for the submission of Taiwan to China: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/oct/08/elon-musk...

Musk claims to be a free speech absolutist but mysteriously has nothing to say about the lack of free speech in China. In contrast, Musk is happy to ridiculously call Western governments "fascist" and "tyrannical":

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/11/majority-...

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/elon-musk-doubles-down-o...

Like all oligarchs, Musk is authoritarian by nature and sympathetic to authoritarian regimes.

jickes2• 2 years ago

I mean most Americans ARE entitled.

pizza2• 2 years ago

You would disempower people far more than empower them. You would be denying them the right to free speech and the free exchange of ideas. It would basically result in the wanton destruction of probably hundreds of thousands if not millions of established little pockets of community for self-expression that people had worked to build and maintain*. Name one other type of media that does not then also deserve the same ban on the same grounds you had in mind for why short form video is inherently evil.

* By freedom of speech here I basically mean the usual social norms about what things are generally not prohibited. I say this to avoid being misinterpreted as my position being one of "all speech is permitted no matter its content" because that's not what society has decided.

valunord• 2 years ago

If this deal happens, it could redefine how the US-China tech standoff is negotiated... Musk’s involvement would be fascinating - not just for the data implications, but for the precedent it sets: Can a single entrepreneur navigate and mediate two global superpowers’ interests?

It also raises the question of whether TikTok, under any ownership, can ever truly escape concerns about data security and political influence. Hmmm. Perhaps the bigger story here is the global power shift reflected in how tech companies are wielded as strategic assets.

downrightmike• 2 years ago

Tim Apple does it better though

rnadom12• 2 years ago

Musk stands to gain a lot. If China had done the same to Google in China, everyone would have an uproar, but somehow when it's done to a Chinese company, it's okay?

Even if I think TikTok is cancer, I am not sure two wrongs makes one right..

morkalork• 2 years ago

Is google not blocked in China anymore? You might want to check in on how western social media is treated by CCP government first before making such statements.

tnt128• 2 years ago

Look, when you do business in a country, you obey that countries law. If you think the law is backwards and incompatible with your business, you don’t operate there, this is what google, fb did. They CHOOSE to not operate in china because they are not able to meet the requirements.

TikTok has met all requirements to operate based on the us law. It still got banned.

That’s a big difference. If data security is a concern the country should have rules regulate how foreign companies handle its citizens data, and it should apply to all companies.

3000• 2 years ago

i cant stand the guy at all, but at the moment he seem to be the only one daring to put up a fight against the woke madness going on in the west. so until a more sane person comes along....

jickes2• 2 years ago

Yeah that's why they halted the cancelation of it. I figured this was exactly why the second I saw it.

I'm sure China will still get it's yummy feed of U.S user data too even it Elon does buy it. I don't really personally care about who's watching me poop or knows where I live. I know why someone would though. I also don't have anything to hide personally but I understand how this is an issue for more "important" people. Also the whole "give them a hand they take an arm" thing is why I won't conform to it.

asdffdasasdf• 2 years ago

they are mostly underlining the fact that the whole situation is about corruption and that it would easily please the corrupt if they benefited financially. and they ate the bait.

kazinator• 2 years ago

Would there be a rebranding?

I vote for "Dick Talk".

WheelsAtLarge• 2 years ago

Another example of "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer"

archagon• 2 years ago

Corporate social media is population-scale brainwashing in a candy wrapper. Far worse than TV ever was.

Nobody is going to care about the invasion of Taiwan when Musk puts his finger on the algorithm’s scale as a quid pro quo to sell more Teslas abroad.

jasdi• 2 years ago

Too much money chasing too few goods in the market causes Inflation

Too much Content chasing limited human Attention is causing very very similar issues.

It took centuries to connect the fact that increasing or decreasing the money supply at a faster or slower rate than goods arriving in the market causes all kinds of chaos. The chaos made it hard to see the connection.

Central banks finally emerged to manage money supply and target a healthy inflation rate.

Handing Attention management off to the platforms is very similar to the state of affair when Kings and individual Banks printed their own money. That provided funding for wars. And created panics, bubbles, bank failures all the time which lead to the reluctant handing over of money printing to Central Banks world wide.

Today thanks to similar dynamics in the Attention Economy we are probably in a hyperinflationary state. As content keeps exploding, it gets harder and harder to be seen or heard unless you "buy more ads", win ad bidding wars, or "pay for visibility".

And guess what?

China can easily "buy more ads", win ad bidding wars, or "pay for visibility" to make things worse. They can/will also just flood the platforms with content via GenAI. Business will be pushed to spend more, Politicians have to raise more and individuals will struggle to focus on anything. Everyone will get exhausted or loose their minds. China or whoever won't have to fire a single shot to trigger collapse.

It doesn't matter who owns platforms if the way platforms manage Attention does not change.

We either need a Central Attention Bank that measures and targets healthy Attention extraction/consumption rates across different content types or Regulation placed on platforms on how Attention is managed (time limits, limits on ads volume, limits on marketing budgets all broken down by different content types (long term value/short term value/no value ie entertainment with individuals deciding the breakup just like they do with money - investments/savings/current etc etc).

JumpCrisscross3• 2 years ago

Central banks finally emerged to manage money supply and target a healthy inflation rate

Platforms like TikTok--or more accurately, their algorithms--as ersatz central banks of attention is a fascinating concept.

we are probably in a hyperinflationary state. As content keeps exploding

More content chasing limited attention means the content's value is inflating. Sure enough, we see a secular decline in ad prices from 2010 to 2020 [1]. (They have increased since 2020.)

[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WPU365

awnird• 2 years ago

Many TikTok users are signing up for RedNote, an actual Chinese social media app. US users consider this a better option than American offerings such as Instagram, Twitter, or YouTube.

While Chinese developers are focused on building great products, US developers are focused on pushing politics. As a result, the Chinese apps are clearly more desirable for users.

consumer4514• 2 years ago

While Chinese developers are focused on building great products, US developers are focused on pushing politics. As a result, the Chinese apps are clearly more desirable for users.

What specific features does Rednote have that beat US competitors?

Where do you think that US users heard about Rednote? If you are not a TikTok user, then you would had never heard of this app. Clearly, TikTok used their algo to "raid" Rednote, like a Twitch stream raid.

pizza2• 2 years ago

It's much simpler than that! You just have to recognize that this is basically the Streisand effect, or, hell, even just the Boston Tea Party!

1. A government/center of power imposes a unilateral decree to deprive many people of something they used to have a right to

2. The affected hear: "shut up about your rights"

3. This act of deprivation itself becomes the uniting common issue for the affected, and then they become a self-organizing body politic

3. The body politic then naturally becomes suspicious of any solution that appears to comply with the government's wishes

If you're surprised that people in this country protest when they feel their right to protest has been encroached upon - or if it seems surprising that using Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts would not be interpreted as protest but using Rednote would be (or, and this also seems very likely: if news organizations would ever NOT pick up the story of some number of users flocking to yet another Chinese app WITHOUT making it seem like a big protest) - I don't know what to tell you.

vitorgrs2• 2 years ago

I'm not even a U.S user, and I heard about rednote on... Threads! From Meta. Kinda ironic.

MangoCoffee• 2 years ago

While Chinese developers are focused on building great products, US developers are focused on pushing politics.

I disagree. I believe Chinese developers have more problems due to CCP's censorship. For example, the new NetEase game, Marvel Rivals, has censorship built in.

also, please explain in detail what politics is being push by US developers.

https://gamerant.com/marvel-rivals-censorship-chat-messages-...

As a result, the Chinese apps are clearly more desirable for users.

A quick Google search shows that Instagram has over 2 billion MAUs, while TikTok has 1.6 billion.

JumpCrisscross3• 2 years ago

Many TikTok users are signing up for RedNote, an actual Chinese social media app

PAFACA (seriously?) already empowers the President to designate "applications owned and operated by other companies" as "oreign adversary controlled applications" [1].

If a deal is forthcoming between Musk and Bytedance, RedNote will almost certainly be designated in Q1.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protecting_Americans_from_Fore...

dragonelite• 2 years ago

Well Americans better get used to using a VPN if they want to breach their firewall. I gotta admit this cyber situation switcheroo happening in the third week of 2025 is not what i had on my bingo card. I expected that more to happen post Trump 2nd term.

corimaith• 2 years ago

Switching from a short-form video platform to a Instagram clone strikes to me more as contrarian tribalism than actually seeking alternatives to host one's content.

consumer4514• 2 years ago

This is the devil's endorsement.

Seriously, as an enjoyer of democracy and freedom, how is this not a complete horror story?

Musk is so anti-democratic that the CCP trusts him? Is that what I am seeing here? Please, someone talk me down.

uxhacker• 2 years ago

https://archive.is/E7uSb

chvid• 2 years ago

What a crazy merger between US big money capitalism and politics. Incredible how that sort of thing has been normalized.

China Discusses Sale of TikTok US to Musk as One Possible Option

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