Elon Musk weighed in on one of the first business investment unveilings by President Donald Trump Wednesday, in a move that could suggest friction at the heart of the new administration's focus on America's leadership in the global technology race.

If it were possible to short a public figure with maximum leverage, Elon Musk would surely be the top target. The political and enterprise value of “Musk Inc” is built on treacherous ideological sands.

After years of rejecting the idea of a sale of TikTok’s US assets to an American buyer in order to avert a ban, China and ByteDance may have found an owner they could live with: Elon Musk.

Reports about Chinese officials eyeing Musk as the buyer of TikTok’s U.S. operations are “not a total shock” given Musk’s relationship with Trump, says Wedbush analyst Dan Ives.

Elon Musk is being eyed by Chinese authorities as a potential buyer of TikTok. Newsweek's live blog is closed.

I met with the owners of Tiktok, the big owners, it’s worthless if it doesn’t get a permit,” Trump said. “It’s worth like a trillion dollars.”

President Trump indicated that he would be open to Tesla CEO Elon Musk or Oracle CEO Larry Ellison buying TikTok.

Musk acquired X (then Twitter) in October 2022 after a highly publicized back and forth, in which he gave up on the acquisition midway but ultimately closed the deal, paying $44 billion for the platform. X's user base has been on a decline since the acquisition, and advertising revenues have plummeted.

The US has unveiled Stargate, a $500 billion AI initiative supported by major tech players like SoftBank and Oracle, aimed at maintaining a competitive edge over China. Elon Musk has raised concerns over the project's funding,

On Tuesday night, President Donald Trump issued a pardon to Ross Ulbricht, who ran the dark web marketplace Silk Road under the pseudonym “Dread Pirate Roberts.” Ulbricht has been serving a life sentence without parole since 2015, when he was convicted of multiple charges, including the distribution of narcotics.

YouTuber MrBeast, X owner Elon Musk and Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison are names that have floated around in the past week.