by Gursimran Mehar

(Reuters) – Elon Musk said he was not interested in buying Tiktok, the Chinese application of short videos that the United States tries to ban for reasons of national security.

The words of Elon Musk, formulated at the end of January, were published on Saturday by the Welt group, which is part of the German media company Axel Springer SE, which organized a summit during which Tesla chief joined The conference by video.

“I did not make an offer for Tiktok,” said Elon Musk a week after US President Donald Trump said he was open to the purchase by Elon Musk of the application held by bytedance S ‘ He wanted it.

“I have no project on what I would do if I had Tiktok,” said Elon Musk, adding that he did not personally use the application of short videos and that he was not familiar with the application format.

“I am not impatient to acquire Tiktok, I do not acquire companies in general, it is rather rare,” said Musk, adding that the acquisition of the Twitter social media platform, now called X, for a billion dollars, was unusual.

“I used to create companies from nothing,” added Elon Musk.

The republican president signed a decree aimed at delaying the application of the ban on the popular application of short videos which was to be closed on January 19.

Bytedance was granted the January period to sell the American assets of Tiktok or to face a ban in the United States, following the concerns of the legislators according to which the application poses risks for national security because the China could force the company to share the data of its American users. Tiktok has denied having shared or wanting to share the data of its American users.

Apple and Google have not reintegrated Tiktok in their application stores since the entry into force of American law. Tiktok said on Friday that it allowed American Android users to download the application and connect to it via its website, in order to bypass the restrictions imposed on the popular platform in the country.

Donald Trump said he was in talks with several people about the purchase of Tiktok and that he would probably make a decision on the future of the application this month. The application has around 170 million American users.

This week, the president signed a decree aimed at creating a sovereign fund during the year, adding that this fund could possibly buy Tiktok.

Bytedance has always refuted to have the will to give in Tiktok.

(Gursimran Kaur in Bangalore)

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