Elon Musk has firmly denied any involvement or interest in acquiring TikTok during a late January summit. The Tesla CEO explicitly stated, "I have not put in a bid for TikTok" and confirmed he has no plans for the platform.

Photo Credit: Debbie Rowe / CC by 4.0

Musk emphasized his preference for building companies from scratch rather than acquiring them, noting that his acquisitions are "quite rare." While he's known for leading Tesla, he joined as an investor in 2003 after its founding by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, later becoming CEO in 2008 after investing $80 million during a financial crisis.

His successful founding ventures include:

• SpaceX
• The Boring Company
• Neuralink
• xAI

Meanwhile, TikTok's parent company ByteDance is working to circumvent potential App Store restrictions by creating a side-loadable Android version. This comes as President Biden signed a law that could fine platform owners $5,000 per download.

Several parties have expressed interest in acquiring TikTok's U.S. operations, including:

• Frank McCourt
• Kevin O'Leary
• Steven Mnuchin
• Perplexity AI

President Trump has also mentioned ongoing talks with multiple interested parties and suggested TikTok's U.S. operations could become part of a proposed sovereign wealth fund.

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