Elon Musk rails against potential TikTok ban after Trump, says it's about ‘censorship and government control’

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has joined former US President Donald Trump to denounce the potential federal ban on Chinese app TikTok, which is widely popular among the youngsters in the United States.

As House Republican leaders are likely to pass legislation this week, X owner Musk took to his social media platform on Tuesday to say that the Congressional bill that prohibits access to the app amounts to "censorship and government control".

“This law is not just about TikTok, it is about censorship and government control! If it were just about TikTok, it would only cite “foreign control” as the issue, but it does not,” he tweeted.

The billionaire reposteda tweet from Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who criticised the potential TikTok ban as a Trojan horse, stating that it would empower the president to ban websites and not just apps.

“The so-called TikTok ban is a trojan horse. The President will be given the power to ban WEB SITES, not just Apps. The person breaking the new law is deemed to be the U.S. (or offshore) INTERNET HOSTING SERVICE or App Store, not the “foreign adversary”,” Massie said in a tweet.

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What did Donald Trump say about the ban?

On Monday, Trump suggested that a TikTok ban would benefit Facebook and Instagram parent firm Meta, which competes with his social media app Truth Social. He had attempted to ban TikTok in 2020 while serving as the US president.

Trump, during an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box”, labelled Facebook as "enemy of the people" and asserted the that ban would make the social media giant "bigger".

"Without TikTok, you can make Facebook bigger, and I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people," he said, adding that TikTok lovers, particularly young kids, would “go crazy” a ban would be imposed on the app.

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He further admitted that TikTok poses a “national security threat” to the US government, but added that Facebook “is also bad” for the country, especially when it is about elections.

On Tuesday, Meta saw its worst day on Wall Street in eight months, with shares falling about 4.5% to settle just below $484. However, Meta's shares have risen nearly 30% this year, suggesting a significant recovery from its 2022 market challenges.

If the House and Senate adopt the bill and sign it into law, the bill would allow ByteDance to sell the app within six months or TikTok would be outlawed in the United States.