After years of rejecting the idea of a sale of TikTok’s US assets to an American buyer in order to avert a ban, China and ByteDance may have found an owner they could live with: Elon Musk.

When refugees from the app showed up on an alternative called RedNote, understanding was fostered.

RedNote, called Xiaohongshu in Chinese — which literally translates as Little Red Book, an apparent reference to former dictator Chairman Mao Zedong — is also required to follow the Chinese Communist Party’s regulations, but has yet to exert its moderation of English language content to meet these standards.

Columnist David Marcus writes that TikTok must be taken out of the Chinese Communist Party's hands if it is to turn the lights back on.

Anti-TikTok sentiment rapidly accelerated through all branches of government. A congressional bill demanding ByteDance sell its stake in their app to an American buyer or face expulsion from the country vote received a bipartisan vote, was signed by President Joe Biden and upheld by a 7-2 Supreme Court decision.

The founder of the app’s parent, Beijing-based ByteDance, met with Elon Musk last year.

In his first few days back in office, President Trump is talking about TikTok entirely as a deal making exercise, dropping all of his previously expressed concerns about Chinese influence and American national security.

The Supreme Court upheld the TikTok ban, causing the app to go dark for half a day. Then, Trump issued an executive order to postpone the ban for 75 days, allowing TikTok to go back online. Beyond the legal complexities,

The Trump administration is denying it, but Trump previously said he'd like to see the software company take it over.

President Donald Trump downplayed the national security risk posed by TikTok in an interview with Fox News on Wednesday, days after offering the social video app a reprieve from legislation that would have forced it to shut down.

State media hailed RedNote's success among American "TikTok refugees" as a repudiation of U.S. government "demonizing" of China's development.