What a plan B might look like

次选方案可能是什么

As TikTok faces a countdown to a potential ban in the United States, Chinese officials are reportedly weighing an unexpected plan B: letting Elon Musk take over the popular video platform.

随着TikTok正在进入可能在美国被禁的倒计时，据称中国官员正在考虑一个出乎意料的次选方案：让埃隆·马斯克接管这个受欢迎的短视频平台。

On paper, such an arrangement makes sense, given Beijing’s existing ties to and trust in the world’s richest man. But beyond whether this might actually happen, there are a host of other questions that would need to be resolved for it to work.

考虑到中国政府与这名世界首富之间的现有关系和信任，这种安排从字面上讲得通。但此事是否真会发生先放一边，要使其奏效，还需要解决一大堆其他问题。

The latest: Chinese officials have debated whether the tech mogul should be allowed to invest in or buy TikTok’s American operations to satisfy a U.S. law requiring the app’s sale, according to Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal.

最新消息：据彭博新闻社和《华尔街日报》报道，中国官员们一直在争论是否应该让这名技术大亨投资或收购TikTok的美国业务，以满足美国要求出售该应用的法律规定。

It’s unclear whether Chinese officials have spoken with Musk or ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company. TikTok has called the reports “pure fiction.”

目前还不清楚中国官员是否与马斯克或TikTok的母公司字节跳动讨论过这个问题。TikTok称这些报道“纯属虚构”。

There’s a logic to such a move:

这样做有些道理：

• Musk is a close ally of President-elect Donald Trump, and both men have said they oppose outlawing TikTok in the United States. (The Times reports that the billionaire is expected to use office space in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, adjacent to the White House, as part of his work for the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.) Musk has been a counterweight to China hawks in the Trump orbit, including Senator Marco Rubio, the pick for secretary of state.

• 马斯克是候任总统特朗普的亲密盟友，两人都已表示，他们反对在美国禁止TikTok。（时报报道称，预计这名亿万富翁将在距离白宫不远的艾森豪威尔行政办公楼办公，作为他为所谓的政府效率部工作的地点。）在特朗普阵营中，马斯克一直是对包括国务卿人选马可·卢比奥参议员在内的对华鹰派起抗衡作用的人。

• Musk also has a close relationship with Beijing, and officials there most likely feel that they have leverage over Musk: China accounts for about 40 percent of Tesla’s sales, a market share that has come under threat by homegrown competitors.

• 马斯克也与中国政府关系密切，中国官员很可能认为他们对马斯克有影响力：特斯拉约40%的销售在中国，这一市场份额受到本土竞争对手的威胁。

• For Musk, putting TikTok together with X could vastly expand his social media empire’s audience, potentially making it more attractive to advertisers. (That would also help the contingent of investors who financed Musk’s purchase of Twitter in 2022.) And TikTok generates a huge amount of data that could be useful for training his xAI’s artificial intelligence models.

• 对马斯克来说，将TikTok和X结合起来，能极大地扩大其社交媒体帝国的受众，有可能使其对广告商产生更大吸引力。（这也会对为马斯克2022年收购Twitter提供过资金的投资者有帮助。）TikTok生成的大量数据可能对训练他的xAI人工智能模型有帮助。

There are still a lot of unknowns. Beijing would prefer to look strong in standing up to Washington, especially as Trump — who despite opposing a TikTok ban has spoken of escalating a trade fight — prepares to take office. The Journal adds that some discussions to date have concluded that a better course of action might be to let TikTok get banned and then negotiate with Trump. Because the law only prevents ByteDance from updating TikTok, such negotiations would give it and the White House time to reach an accord.

仍有许多未知数。中国政府更愿意在对抗华盛顿时表现出强硬态度，尤其是在特朗普准备上任之际，尽管他反对禁止TikTok，但已表示要升级贸易战。《华尔街日报》的报道还说，迄今为止的一些讨论得出的结论是，更好的做法可能是让TikTok被禁，然后与特朗普谈判。由于法律只禁止字节跳动更新TikTok，这些谈判将让公司有时间与白宫达成协议。

It’s also unclear how Musk would finance a deal. One possibility is his borrowing against his Tesla shares, which have soared since Trump’s victory. (It’s an option he considered — but didn’t take — when he moved to buy Twitter.)

目前还不清楚马斯克将怎样为收购融资。一种可能性是他用特斯拉股票做抵押以获得贷款，特斯拉股票已在特朗普获胜后飙升。（马斯克收购Twitter时曾考虑过这种选择，但没有这样做。）

And a deal might raise questions about Musk’s closeness to Trump and where his loyalties lie. The Tesla chief has already drawn criticism from right-wing figures like Steve Bannon, who have accused him of prioritizing his business interests.

做这笔交易可能会引发人们对马斯克与特朗普的亲密程度以及他到底对谁忠诚的质疑。这名特斯拉首席执行官已受到史蒂夫·班农等右翼人士的批评，他们指责马斯克优先考虑自己的商业利益。