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.

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.

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

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 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.

In a recent post on X, Elon Musk voiced concerns over the ongoing tensions between the U.S. and China regarding social media platforms, specifically TikTok and X (formerly Twitter). Musk, who owns X,