From Bloomberg:
Chinese officials are evaluating a potential option that involves Elon Musk acquiring the US operations of TikTok if the company fails to fend off a controversial ban on the short-video app, according to people familiar with the matter.
Resolves YES if Elon Musk & ByteDance formally begin the process for Elon Musk to be at least a substantial owner of TikTok's US operations, before market close (August 31st 2025).
It does not matter if that process is eventually blocked (by the courts or etc) before it can complete, the formal process just needs to begin. But simply an announcement of "I'd like to do this" is not sufficient—there needs to be clear legal action that this is happening, according to a credible consensus of reporting.
It also resolves YES if TikTok is acquired by any company (e.g. X Corp, X.AI, etc) where Musk is CEO, the largest shareholder, or is otherwise viewed as the dominant force behind the company.
Otherwise (including in the absence of any other information), resolves NO at market close.
[01/14 creator clarification]: To clarify "substantial owner", the criteria for YES on that point will be fairly broad—the spirit of the market is about whether the public would generally would consider Elon to have "bought" TikTok in any formalized sense. The goal is to avoid rules lawyering about the exact corporate structure that he uses (to put it informally, "well technically he's not quite the 'owner' of TikTok!" is likely not going to be enough to resolve this NO). Note: I can only clarify resolution for the mana market, & I do not run the sweeps version.
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He might still be overleveraged from his Twitter buyout, but this is a gut feeling, not actual research. Feel free to settle it in the market if I'm wrong. That, or, the powers that be might tell him to back off from some sort of social media monopoly.
@Ziddletwix >Elon Musk & ByteDance formally begin the process for Elon Musk to be at least a substantial owner of TikTok's US operations
Can it be more than just Elon? If so, what defines substantial?
Can it be more than just Elon?
Yes
If so, what defines substantial?
I am slightly hesitant to quantify percentages, because this isn't meant to be a rules lawyerly market (the spirit of YES is fairly broad, if Elon would end up with substantial formal control over TikTok it will count, even if there are other stakeholders with influence).
To make this more precise, I can add that Musk (or any company/etc he is associated with) is the largest single stakeholder. I don't want to change the description after people have bet, but that would be more of a clarification than a change. (And again, this will not be rules lawyered to NO—e.g. if Musk was the largest single voting shareholder but some other shareholder owned more of the company that wouldn't matter, or etc).
So will add a brief note to description clarifying some of this, but really the TL;DR is the definition for YES will be broad and quantifying the details might mislead.
@Ziddletwix added a clarifying note re: the spirit of the market. Note that I only run the mana market, and I do not speak for how the sweeps market is run or resolved.
Polymarket trading at 12% [resolves before April]