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.

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.

The app, which has over 170 million American users, was directed to either sell its US operations to an American company or face a ban effective from Jan 19.

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

The bidding for TikTok’s future is heating up, with tech heavyweights including Elon Musk, Amazon, Oracle, and a consortium led by billionaire Frank McCourt also joining the race. This high-profile acquisition has garnered global attention, with the sale expected to become one of the largest in tech history.

At a press briefing on Tuesday, President Trump suggested that he’s open to the idea of Elon Musk or Larry Ellison buying TikTok.

Elon Musk has indicated that he’s open to resurrecting the defunct video platform, Vine, after a ban shut down TikTok over the weekend to millions of users in the U.S. Musk, who owns social media rival X,

Elon Musk is finally sharing his thoughts on the TikTok ban. On Saturday night, the app briefly went offline in the United States, months after the

Elon Musk criticized the situation where TikTok operates in the US, but X is banned in China, calling it unbalanced and emphasizing the need for change, while also expressing his long-standing opposition to banning TikTok.