The Chinese government is considering a plan that would have Elon Musk acquire TikTok’s U.S. operations to keep the app from being effectively banned, Bloomberg News reported on Monday.

The contingency plan is one of several options China is exploring as the U.S. Supreme Court determines whether to uphold a law that calls for China-based ByteDance to divest TikTok’s U.S. business by Jan. 19, the report said, citing anonymous sources.

After that deadline, third-party Internet service providers would be penalized for supporting TikTok’s operations in the country.

Under the plan, Musk would oversee both X, which he currently owns, and TikTok’s U.S. business, Bloomberg said. However, Chinese government officials haven’t yet decided on whether it would proceed, the report said, noting that the plan is still preliminary.

It’s unclear whether ByteDance knows about the Chinese government’s plans and TikTok and Musk’s involvement in the discussions, the report said. Senior Chinese officials are debating contingency plans involving TikTok’s future in the U.S. as part of larger discussions about working with President-elect Donald Trump, the report added.

A TikTok spokesperson said in an email to CNBC, “We can’t be expected to comment on pure fiction.” X didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Last week, the Supreme Court held oral arguments about the law potentially banning TikTok, which President Joe Biden signed in April. TikTok’s legal team argued that the law violates the free-speech rights of the millions of users in the U.S. while the U.S. government said that ByteDance’s ownership of TikTok poses a national security risk.

With the Supreme Court appearing to side with the government, TikTok could turn to Trump, when his second term begins on Jan. 20. Trump, who favored a TikTok ban during his first administration, has since flip-flopped on the matter. Late last month, he urged the Supreme Court to intervene and forcibly delay implementation of Biden’s ban to give him time to find a “political resolution.”

Trump’s rhetoric on TikTok began to turn after he met in February with billionaire Jeff Yass, a Republican megadonor and a major investor in ByteDance who also owns a stake in the owner of Truth Social, Trump’s social media company.

WATCH: SCOTUS hears TikTok ban case

Barry Diller’s IAC said Monday that its board approved the spinoff of Angi, the home improvement marketplace the company acquired in 2017.

IAC said it expects the transaction to close in the second quarter of the year. The two companies will post their respective fourth-quarter results when IAC reports on Feb. 11. Angi was founded in 1995 as Angie’s List, which went public on the Nasdaq in 2011.

As part of the spinoff, IAC CEO Joey Levin will leave his role and become an advisor to the company. Levin will also take on a new role as Angi’s executive chairman, serving as the marketplace’s senior executive alongside CEO Jeff Kip, IAC said.

“Joey Levin has been an exemplary leader of IAC, creating significant value during his nearly decade-long tenure as IAC CEO,” Diller, IAC’s chairman, said in a statement.

Upon Levin’s vacancy, IAC will operate without a new CEO, the company said. IAC’s top execs will report directly to Diller, as will publisher Dotdash Meredith, the company’s largest business. The rest of IAC’s units will report to operating chief Christopher Halpin.

IAC has previously used no-CEO structures when reorganizing its businesses. Most recently, in 2013, then-CEO Greg Blatt stepped down from the role to become chairman of the newly formed Match Group division.

“Each of IAC and Angi has a vigorous future, and I expect to remain an active participant in both,” Levin said in a statement.

As part of the spinoff, IAC shareholders will get direct ownership of Angi, IAC said.

IAC first announced it was considering a spinoff of Angi in November. At the time, the company said Angi’s revenue declined 16% year over year to $296.7 million during the third quarter. The company attributed the slide to reduced sales and marketing spend, which led to a decrease in service requests and lower acquisition of new professionals.

IAC acquired Angie’s List in a deal valued at more than $500 million. It merged the site with HomeAdvisor, creating a new public company. Angi currently has a market cap of about $770 million, and IAC owns 85% of it.

The spinoff has been under consideration for several years, but IAC postponed the effort in 2019 as it completed the Match Group transaction. Match owns dating services including Tinder, Match and Hinge.

IAC has become known for incubating businesses and spinning them off into separate companies. It’s done the same with Expedia, Ticketmaster and LendingTree, among others.

WATCH: IAC CEO on M&A opportunities, spinoff from ANGI and AI

Chinese social media app RedNote has skyrocketed to the top of Apple’s app store, underscoring concerns that TikTok will soon be effectively banned in the U.S.

RedNote, or Xiaohongshu as it’s known in China, is the number one free app on the Apple app store as of Monday, followed by TikTok’s photo-sharing Lemon8 app and OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Many TikTok creators are rushing to find alternatives where they can continue posting videos while waiting to see what happens with TikTok, which faces a potential Jan. 19 ban in the U.S. The Supreme Court held oral arguments last week about the April law setting the stage for a ban, and seemed to side more favorably with the U.S. government’s arguments that ByteDance’s ownership of TikTok poses a national security risk.

Attorneys representing TikTok and creators argued that the law violates the free-speech protections of millions of its U.S. users.

If the Supreme Court upholds the law, third-party service providers like Apple and Google will be penalized for supporting TikTok, thus effectively banning the app in the U.S. It’s unclear whether President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, would choose to enforce the law.

Some TikTok creators are enacting contingency plans by migrating to RedNote.

One content creator, who goes by the username allieusyaps, said in a post on Monday that while “it’s OK” that TikTok could be banned in the U.S., he and other TikTok creators “aren’t going back to Instagram and Facebook” because they joined RedNote.

“Look I might not have a job in the next week, but we about to learn Mandarin baby!” the user wrote.

Another TikTok creator named Krystan Walmsley posted a short video teaching people how to set up and decorate their RedNote accounts.

“This app is so cute and it’s a lot of fun so far,” Walmsley said.

RedNote, based in Shanghai, was founded in 2013, and has increasingly challenged Alibaba and Douyin, ByteDance’s version of TikTok in China, in e-commerce and social media. It had about 300 million monthly active users as of July 2024, according to a report by the South China Morning Post.

RedNote was valued at $17 billion after raising funding in July from investors like Boyu Capital and HongShan Capital Group, formerly Sequoia Capital’s Chinese investment arm, according to PitchBook. It’s raised over $900 million in total funding and has more than 2,000 employees, PitchBook said.

Representatives from RedNote and TikTok didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Watch: TikTok viewed as “Chinese eyes and ears in Western society.”