Elon Musk has no interest in purchasing TikTok’s American business from Chinese company ByteDance according to new public comments.
In a recently released video interview at the WELT Economic Summit, the DOGE chief said he doesn’t use the app and could not find motivation to pursue a purchase.
“I have not actually put in a bid for TikTok, I don’t have any plans for what I would do if I had TikTok,” Musk told the German forum.
Musk went on to say he does not generally purchase companies and only does so when he can see an altruistic reason.
“I do not acquire companies that’s quite rare. Acquiring Twitter, now called X, was highly unusual. I usually build companies from scratch,” Musk said.
“The reason I acquired Twitter, which is what I said at the time, was that it was important to preserve freedom of speech in America and to the extent that we are legally allowed to, to the rest of the world,” he said.
The world’s richest man went on to say purchasing X was an “important, productive step for the future of humanity.”
“I don’t know if the same logic applies to TiKTok,” Musk said, adding the purchase of the ByteDance owned app would have purely economic benefits.
Congress passed a ban on the Chinese owned app last year — but President Trump halted that action and has given the company more time to pursue a buyer for its American business.
The president has previously endorsed the idea of first buddy purchasing TikTok from ByteDance — saying he “would be” supportive of Elon purchasing the app “if he wanted to buy it,” at a news conference last month.
Now, Vice President JD Vance has been tasked with overseeing the sale of the social media giant that has 170 million users in the United States.
President Trump halted the congressionally approved ban on his first day in office, postponing its removal from American app stores for 75-days.
