Tit for Tat? Elon Musk Wants China to Unban X As Trump Allows TikTok in US

Headed for a shutdown in the US last week per law by the Joe Biden government due to national security concerns, TikTok has found a saviour in Donald Trump. The US President-elect Trump assured that TikTok will continue to be available in the US — albeit with certain conditions. The bottom line is that TikTok may no longer face a ban in the US. The world’s richest man Elon Musk appears to be unhappy about it.

Musk initially advocated for TikTok and was against a ban on it as it would result in a violation of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. “In my opinion, TikTok should not be banned in the USA, even though such a ban may benefit the X platform,” he said in a post on X. “Doing so would be contrary to freedom of speech and expression. It is not what America stands for.”

However, he later clarified his stance, adding that allowing TikTok — a Chinese app — in the US while X remains blocked in China amounts to an “unbalanced” situation. “I have been against a TikTok ban for a long time, because it goes against freedom of speech. That said, the current situation where TikTok is allowed to operate in America, but X is not allowed to operate in China is unbalanced,” he said.

China banned X, which was formerly known as Twitter, in 2009 alongside several other social media platforms, websites, and search engines as part of its Great Firewall implementation, a term given by Western media to a set of tools, services, and rules Beijing uses to block select websites and content from internet within borders. China has substituted each platform though. For instance, Weibo is the country’s most popular social media platform, similar to Facebook and X, while Beidou is its answer to Google Search. WeChat is an alternative to WhatsApp and other chat apps.

The shutdown of TikTok was part of a crackdown by the US on China-owned entities to prevent the Chinese government, which owns a 1 per cent stake in ByteDance, from accessing user data, to stop it from influencing users, or to control their devices. FBI Director Chris Wray has said TikTok poses a national security risk, adding that Chinese firms could be forced to “do whatever the Chinese government wants them to in terms of sharing information or serving as a tool of the Chinese government.”

Musk could also potentially buy TikTok’s US subsidiary as required by Trump. While the previous law mandated a divestment of ByteDance’s app, Trump said 50 per cent of the operations should be owned by a US company. The remaining part will continue to be under ByteDance’s ownership, he added.