President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he would be open to the possibility of having his billionaire ally Elon Musk buy the U.S. operations of TikTok in his latest comments on the popular social media platform.

He previously floated a joint venture, saying that the US should be entitled to half of the app.

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he would be supportive of the world's richest man and his close aide, Elon Musk, buying TikTok "if he wanted to". Trump was asked if he would be open to the billionaire founder of Tesla buying the short-video platform facing a nationwide ban in the US after the Supreme Court last week upheld a law requiring TikTok to sever ties with its Chinese parent ByteDance.

President Donald Trump said he would be open to billionaire supporter Elon Musk or Oracle Corp. Chairman Larry Ellison purchasing social video app TikTok as part of a joint venture with the US government.

After years of rejecting the idea of a sale of TikTok’s US assets to an American buyer in order to avert a ban, China and ByteDance may have found an owner they could live with: Elon Musk.

ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, is required to sell the app to a U.S.-based buyer or face a nationwide ban.

Instagram announced a new video editing app, called Edits, on the same day that rival video service TikTok briefly went dark in response to a federal ban. X also touted the launch of a dedicated video tab in its mobile app.

Social media companies are making the most of the TikTok ban in the US by offering new video tools and feeds. View on euronews

Tesla CEO Elon Musk hailed US President-Elect Donald Trump's decision to not ban Chinese social media app TikTok.Musk believed TikTok ban went against freedom of speech.He, however flagged off an imbalance,