Officials in the Chinese government are reportedly considering contingency plans should the U.S. choose to ban TikTok this month, possibly selling the app’s U.S. operations to tech billionaire Elon Musk. 

While Chinese officials would rather not sell any portion of TikTok’s parent company ByteDance to U.S. interests, a strategic sale to Mr. Musk could be a way forward as President-elect Donald Trump begins his new administration. 

The report, first published in Bloomberg, claims that Chinese government officials are considering working with Mr. Musk’s X to buy the U.S. arm of ByteDance. The sale would effectively combine the two apps and require Mr. Musk to work with ByteDance in China. 

The sale hinges on the Supreme Court, which is deliberating on whether the U.S. can ban TikTok over security concerns. While lawyers for ByteDance have argued that banning TikTok would violate the First Amendment, a majority of justices during oral arguments last week seemed to back the idea that national security concerns trump free speech.

It’s also unclear if Mr. Musk could afford to buy the U.S. arm of ByteDance. Some estimates have valued TikTok’s U.S. division at $50 billion, a large sum for Mr. Musk, who’s still paying off massive loans from his 2022 Twitter purchase. 

TikTok and ByteDance claim to have no knowledge of the reported talks among Chinese government officials, calling the plans of a U.S. sale “pure fiction” in a statement. The Chinese government holds a majority stake in a ByteDance affiliate that gives it control over certain aspects of the business. 

The sale, if possible, would make Mr. Musk’s media empire significantly more powerful. TikTok has more than 1 billion monthly active users, meaning a merger between TikTok and X would bring a massive user base to his site and possibly more advertising revenue.

• Vaughn Cockayne can be reached at vcockayne@washingtontimes.com.