Elon Musk says he has no real interest in buying TikTok’s US operations – Firstpost

Elon Musk, the world’s richest particular person and a prime advisor to US President Donald Trump, mentioned he has no real interest in buying social media platform TikTok’s operations in the US, in feedback launched Saturday.

“I’ve not put in a bid for TikTok and I don’t have any plans for what I’d do if I had TikTok,” mentioned Musk in feedback made by way of videolink at a German discussion board in late January that have been launched on the weekend.

TikTok is going through down a US regulation that ordered the corporate damaged off from its Chinese language proprietor ByteDance or in any other case be banned in the US over nationwide safety issues concerning the info it gathers on customers.

In one among his first acts in workplace, Trump ordered a pause on imposing the regulation that ought to have seen TikTok successfully made unlawful within the nation a day earlier than he took workplace for a second time period.

Quickly after, Trump mentioned he could be open to Musk – the proprietor of social media platform X, Tesla and a slew of different firms – shopping for the platform.

Musk, nonetheless, mentioned he didn’t want to purchase the corporate.

“I don’t use TikTok personally, so, you already know, I’m not that acquainted with it,” he mentioned. “I’m not chomping on the bit to amass TikTok.”

Musk purchased social media large Twitter, which he renamed X, for $44 billion in 2022, insisting he was doing so so as to safeguard “free speech.”

Since his takeover, rights campaigners warn there was a spike in hate speech and disinformation on the platform.

Musk was one among Trump’s most important monetary backers in his presidential marketing campaign, and is heading the US president’s budget-slashing initiatives.

His so-called “Division of Authorities Effectivity” (DOGE) has focused a variety of federal authorities businesses and regulators, with the obvious intent of shutting them down and firing employees, particularly these not in step with Trump’s political agenda.

On Saturday, a US decide issued an emergency order blocking Musk’s authorities reform staff from accessing private and monetary knowledge for hundreds of thousands of Individuals saved on the Treasury Division, courtroom paperwork confirmed.

Within the feedback on the discussion board in Germany, Musk additionally took intention at Variety, Fairness and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, which are supposed to assist traditionally oppressed and disenfranchised communities.

“DEI is just racism rebranded,” he mentioned. “I’m towards racism and sexism irrespective of who it’s directed towards.”

US officers have been racing to enact Trump’s conflict on DEI throughout the federal forms – dismantling coaching initiatives, scrapping grants and sidelining a whole lot of employees.

In Germany, Musk has voiced agency assist for the far-right anti-immigration AfD celebration – a political taboo in a rustic whose Nazi previous stays a delicate topic.