WASHINGTON, Jan 21: U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he was open to billionaire Elon Musk buying social media app TikTok if the Tesla CEO wanted to do so.
WHY IT'S IMPORTANT
The short video app used by 170 million Americans was taken offline temporarily for users shortly before a law that said it must be sold by its Chinese owner ByteDance on national security grounds, or be banned, took effect on Sunday.
Bloomberg News reported last week that Chinese officials were in preliminary talks about a potential option to sell TikTok's operations in the United States to Musk, though the company has denied that.
Trump on Monday signed an executive order seeking to delay by 75 days the enforcement of the law that was put in place after U.S. officials warned that under Chinese parent company ByteDance, there was a risk of Americans' data being misused.
TikTok remained unavailable to download on Apple and Android devices in the United States on Tuesday afternoon.