Elon Musk said he’s not interested in buying TikTok, the popular social video app the US has tried to ban over national security concerns with its Chinese owner ByteDance.
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 on Saturday. “I don’t have any plans for what would I do if I had TikTok.”
Musk said that he does not use TikTok personally.
“I’m not chomping at the bit to acquire TikTok,” said Musk, who bought Twitter in 2022 before renaming the social media service X. “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 US President Donald Trump to acquire the American operations of TikTok if the company fails to fend off a ban.
