(Bloomberg) — Elon Musk said he isn’t interested in buying TikTok, the popular social video app the US has tried to ban over national security concerns with its Chinese owner Bytedance Ltd.
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He made the comments — his first on the topic of him buying TikTok — at a conference in Germany hosted by Mathias Doepfner, the billionaire chief executive of German media conglomerate AxelSpringer, last month.
“I have not put in a bid for TikTok,” Musk said, joining the conference remotely via video, which was made public by the Die Welt newspaper on Saturday. “I don’t have any plans for what would I do if I had TikTok.”
Musk said that he doesn’t use TikTok personally.
“I’m not champing at the bit to acquire TikTok,” said Musk, who bought Twitter in 2022 before renaming the social media service X.
Buying Twitter was an exception, he said, which he said he bought to “preserve freedom of speech.” He said “I usually build companies from scratch.”
Bloomberg News in January reported that Chinese officials were evaluating the possibility that would allow the world’s richest person and close ally of President Donald Trump to acquire the US operations of TikTok if the company fails to fend off a ban. Under one scenario, Musk’s X would take control of TikTok US and run the business together, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.
On Trump’s first day in office, he signed an executive order that temporarily halted a forced sale or shutdown of TikTok, giving the company and its Chinese parent more time to reach a deal. The order came hours after Trump’s inauguration, which was attended by Bytedance CEO Shou Chew.
The order marked the latest turn in a years-long effort in Washington to ban the app over security concerns. Trump — who advocated in favor of a ban during his first term — changed his mind after the app helped him win over younger voters. “We won the young vote. I think I won it through TikTok, so I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok,” he said.
Musk, like Trump, could always change his mind.
Trump has said he would be open to Musk, who donated more than $250 million to his presidential campaign, or Oracle Corp. Chairman Larry Ellison purchasing the app as a part of a joint venture with the US government. This week, Trump also signed a separate executive order he said would direct officials to create a US sovereign wealth fund that could be used to facilitate the sale of TikTok.
ByteDance has publicly refused to sell TikTok, though prospective buyers have said they hope the Supreme Court’s ruling in support of a national security law forcing the company to either sell or shutter the service in the US could push it to reconsider. It also might not be entirely up to the company — the Chinese government would also need to sign off on any transaction.
Listen: TikTok Took On President Trump Over App Ban and Won Big
Taking on DeepSeek
Musk, in the AxelSpringer interview, also said he was aiming to compete with DeepSeek, the artificial intelligence chatbot released in January by Chinese software company DeepSeek.
DeepSeek, whose AI models offer comparable performance to other chatbots at a fraction of the cost, sent waves through the tech industry, roiling global tech stocks and prompting investors to question spending by Meta, Microsoft and others on AI infrastructure.
“Is it some AI revolution? No, it is not. xAI and others will soon be releasing models that are better than DeepSeek,” Musk said, referencing his own AI company.
DOGE for Germany
Musk said that Germany should emulate the process he has started with DOGE.
“The cleansing process for getting rid of nonsensical regulations is war,” he said. “We prefer not to have war. In the absence of war you have to have something like what we’ve formed in the US, the Department of Government Efficiency.”
He also said Trump was using tariffs as a “means to getting cooperation from countries on important matters.”
Musk also reiterated his support of the far-right Alternative for Germany party, which he said aligns with issues such as “sensible” controls on immigration and freedom of speech.
He also addressed the backlash to comments he made at an AfD rally, urging Germans to put “past guilt” behind them and look ahead with pride in Germanic culture and values.
“What I’m not saying is that Nazism should be ignored. I never said that. But I am saying the tremendous cultural history of Germany is incredible,” he said. “One has to understand the full context of German history. The great things and the terrible things.”
Separately, he said he was worried about declining birth rates because with “multiculturalism and globalism, we’re seeing the dilution of individual cultures.” He cautioned “a global mixing pot. Because every place will be the same and there won’t be any unique cultures in the world.”
–With assistance from Dana Hull.
(Updates with more detail from interiview starting in 13th paragraph.)
