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 

 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.