Billionaire Jeff Bezos has suggested that China could gain influence over Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) with the purchase of the company by Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Ilon Musk, hinting at Musk’s business ties to China, where Tesla’s Shanghai plant is located, CNBC writes.

Since Musk’s company relies heavily on Chinese supplier firms for the materials used to make batteries for electric cars, China may be able to gain influence over social network Twitter after the completion of Musk’s $44 billion purchase of it.

Bezos shared his opinion on Monday night after Twitter’s board’s approval of Musk’s acquisition of the company at $54.20 per share was revealed.

Musk is known to have opened a Tesla factory in Shanghai in 2018, and his company relies heavily on Chinese manufacturers to supply it with battery materials.

Twitter is banned in China as authorities have banned access in the country to a number of Western social media platforms, including Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), Instagram and YouTube.

“My own answer to that question is probably no,” Bezos added. – A more likely outcome in this regard would be difficulties in China for Tesla rather than censorship on Twitter. But we’ll see. Musk is very good at navigating these kinds of issues,” he added.

Musk has pledged to improve Twitter’s role as a “digital town square” where users can freely express their opinions and debate, so news of the purchase has raised concerns among some politicians and activists who fear it will give the world’s richest man too much control over online discourse.

However, billionaires owning media companies is not a new phenomenon. For example, the same Bezos owns The Washington Post, and Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) CEO Marc Benioff bought Time magazine in 2018. But Twitter is unique in that it is a platform where millions of people can interact and share content, which is why it is under intense regulatory scrutiny.