Featured Image Credit: Anna Moneymaker / Staff / CFOTO / Contributor / Getty
With the TikTok ban looming many are considering potential investors, and it's only natural that the richest man in the world and current X owner Elon Musk one of the first names that comes to mind to 'save' the social media app.
Elon Musk's investment in social media has had a rocky journey, to say the least. From the offset it was a struggle for the billionaire, as emails reveal he had attempted to back out of the purchase due to concerns over bots, before eventually being forced back in by courts.
This led to significant sum of $44,000,000,000 in October 2022 - around eight to ten times Twitter's then-yearly revenue - and the two and bit years following haven't exactly been smooth sailing for Musk and co.
He's faced a mass advertiser exodus, lawsuits from former employees who argue that they were unfairly dismissed, and an overall value drop of around 72% that perhaps affirmed Musk's belief that the initial purchase price was an 'overpay'.
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While many have jumped over to phoenix social media platform Bluesky since the US election, it is arguable that Musk's control of Twitter, now 'X', played a key role in Donald Trump's victory - which has left musk rewarded with a bespoke role as head of the Department of Government Efficiency.
Many now wonder whether he could be primed to dip his toes into the social media market once more though, as TikTok owner ByteDance could be on the hunt for a potential buyer as a US market ban appears all but confirmed.
The issue, however, is that the purchase of TikTok - even just in America - would be unattainable for most due to the sheer value that the short form video app holds.
Reports from the New York Times indicate that ByteDance is worth around $225 billion, and while it's unclear what the US branch of TikTok would make up of that, it would definitely be a lot.
Therefore it leaves only the richest individuals on the planet as viable options, and reports from The Guardian indicate that Musk is being internally discussed as a potential landing point for a sale.
Times Now have estimated that, based on Musk's previous purchase of Twitter, it would cost around $62 billion to $77 billion to take control of the US branch of TikTok - or $144 billion to $180 billion to purchase the app entirely.
This is based on the notion that Musk paid around eight to ten times the yearly revenue of Twitter, and with TikTok's global revenue of $18.5 billion (with $7.7 billion in the US alone), it certainly would be a hefty investment.
You do wonder whether there would be some form of discount or compromise factored into a US-only sale considering it would be either that or forfeiting all revenue from the region, but it is unclear how a deal would shape up at this point in time.
What is clear is that Musk could likely afford it as his current net worth stands at around $432 billion, but it would likely take a significant sacrifice and potentially require outside investment in order for the sale to go through.
Musk has previously pushed back against the ban of TikTok in America, declaring on X: "In my opinion, TikTok should not be banned in the USA, even though such a ban may benefit the X platform. Doing so would be contrary to freedom of speech and expression. It is not what America stands for."
This could indicate that the billionaire would be open to 'saving' TikTok in the name of free speech, although some might argue that two of the world's leading social media platforms being owned by the same individual isn't the expression of free speech that it seems.
