TikTok denied a report that China is looking at potentially facilitating a sale of the app to tech billionaire Elon Musk to keep TikTok operational in America amid a looming U.S. government ban.

On Monday, Bloomberg reported that “Chinese officials are evaluating a potential option that involves Elon Musk acquiring the US operations of TikTok” if an American law goes into effect that would require parent company ByteDance to divest its TikTok stake or effectively ban the app in the U.S. The Bloomberg report cited anonymous sources.

“We can’t be expected to comment on pure fiction,” a TikTok rep said in reply to Variety‘s request for comment.

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Musk has not commented on Bloomberg’s TikTok report. Musk, who is the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and is the world’s wealthiest individual, bought Twitter in 2022 in a $44 billion deal and subsequently renamed it X. Under “one scenario” that has been discussed by the Chinese government, X would “take control of TikTok US and run the businesses together,” according to the Bloomberg report. The news outlet noted that it is “unclear whether Musk, TikTok and ByteDance have held any talks about the terms of any possible deal.”

TikTok is in danger of being outlawed in the U.S. under a law set to take effect Jan. 19, unless the Supreme Court issues a ruling stopping it from taking effect.

On Friday, Jan. 10, the Supreme Court heard arguments in TikTok’s emergency appeal seeking to block the law, with TikTok and ByteDance arguing that the law violates First Amendment rights of its 170 million U.S. users. But the justices seemed to lean toward being more receptive to the government’s position — that TikTok represents a national security threat, as it falls under the jurisdiction of the Chinese Communist Party.

Beijing-based ByteDance has not indicated that it is exploring the sale of its approximately 40% stake in TikTok to an entity or investor group that would meet with U.S. approval. Meanwhile, Chinese officials previously indicated that if ByteDance did try to sell the stake in TikTok, such a move would be blocked because it would represent a technology export.

Congress passed the divest-or-ban legislation targeting TikTok last year with solid bipartisan support and it was signed into law by President Biden. U.S. lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have expressed deep concern about TikTok’s Chinese ownership, suggesting that the Chinese communist regime could use the app to spy on Americans or use it to spread pro-China propaganda.

The law — the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act — prohibits Apple and Google’s app stores, as well as web hosting services, from hosting or distributing TikTok in the U.S. unless ByteDance sells its ownership in the app to any party located in a country that is not designated a “foreign adversary” of the United States.

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President-elect Donald Trump has requested that the Supreme Court suspend the law from going into effect on Jan. 19 to allow his administration to pursue a “negotiated resolution that could prevent a nationwide shutdown of TikTok, thus preserving the First Amendment rights of tens of millions of Americans, while also addressing the government’s national security concerns.” During his first term, Trump unsuccessfully sought to force a TikTok sale to U.S.-based parties, also over national security fears.