Everyone is a too broader term, because I'm sure there are people and entities who would more or less strongly object to such a move.
What I meant by everyone was the Chinese government, Trump, Elon Musk, and ByteDance.
I think the happiest with such a deal, if it existed, would be Elon Musk, provided he could get his hands on the cash to buy the assets. Tik Tok could be another source of data for Grok, although they do need quality data for training, so maybe Tik Tok doesn't rank high in this regard. But there can be a cross pollination of user bases between Tik Tok and X. Tik Tok is also very profitable, unlike what Twitter was when he took it over. I'm not sure if this transaction would give him access to the feeding algorithm as well, which is how apparently Tik Tok got so successful.
Probably the Chinese government would give the ok to Elon Musk too, since he has massive businesses in China via Tesla and has every reason to play nice. Plus, he seems an admirer of oriental cultures (of work).
They might want something in exchange though, and they may be in the position to ask for it, since the hot potato seems to be in the Americans hands. If the American users didn't care so much about using Tik Tok - enough to start learning Chinese and go to a Chinese alternative if Tik Tok got banned 🤔 - the ball would have been in the US court. It's interesting to watch what forms free speech movements take. Still, everything in the siloed Web 2, rather than on a censorship resistant platform like Hive.
ByteDance, the parent company of Tik Tok, surely doesn't want to sell, because that's a lot of profit and potentially their secret algorithm they would have to share. But if the alternatives are sell or get banned in the US, they will sell if they have the go ahead from the Chinese government.
Trump surely wants to make the deal of having an American buy half of Tik Tok, and be the president who solved this without a ban. I think he'd rather have someone else buy it, not Elon Musk, or two people instead of one, so that Elon Musk doesn't have full control over the US-part of Tik Tok, particularly since he already has X. He even tested the water with Larry Ellison to see his reaction during the press conference.
But, on the same principle of not giving Elon Musk too much power, he selected two co-leads for the DOGE department, and Vivek Ramaswamy is now gone, and Elon Musk remained solely in charge.
If no one else comes up he can trust, he will probably give the ok to Elon Musk, if the deal is on the table. But right now everything is in the speculation realm.
It is important because Elon Musk with X and part of Tik Tok will be an even greater force to consider in social media, future social finance, and AI. And all those developing without any relation to Web 3.
People continue to enjoy and even fight for the appearance of freedom instead of real freedom. It's true, real freedom also implies responsibility, and it is my opinion that it is that what most people want to delegate to others, along with the power it confers.
Posted Using INLEO
