Kevin O’Leary makes $20bn cash bid for TikTok: ‘Most interesting, complicated, crazy situation’
O’Leary Ventures President Kevin O’Leary joins ‘America’s Newsroom’ to discuss his efforts to buy TikTok after the Supreme Court upheld the upcoming sell-or-ban law.
It’s a deal TikTok may not be able to refuse: $20 billion in cash from popular entrepreneur and “Shark Tank” investor Kevin O’Leary.
“There’s $20 billion on the table right now. Cash,” O’Leary said Friday on “America’s Newsroom,” just minutes after the US Supreme Court upheld a law requiring the Chinese-owned company to be sold or banned.
“There’s a reason Congress put this order before the Supreme Court. There’s a reason they ruled in its favor. It’s not worth the risk,” he continued. “And so the obvious solution is to sell it to an American syndicate under a warrant.”
In its decision, the Supreme Court upheld the Protecting Americans from Apps Controlled by Foreign Adversaries Act, a law passed by Congress last April with broad bipartisan support. Law gave TikTok nine months to either split from its Chinese parent ByteDance or be removed from US app stores and hosting services.
BIDEN WILL NOT IMPLEMENT TIKTOK BAN AFTER SIGNING LAW LAST YEARS, LEAVING FATE TO TRUMP: OFFICIAL
Congress originally cited concerns about Chinese ownership of the app, which members said meant the app had weaponization potential or used to collect vast amounts of user data, including from the approximately 170 million Americans who use TikTok.
Kevin O’Leary is reportedly offering $20 billion in cash to buy TikTok. (Getty Images)
TikTok, ByteDance and several of the app’s users quickly sued to block the ban in May, arguing the law would curtail free speech for the millions of Americans who use the platform. After a lower court upheld the ban, the Supreme Court agreed to hear TikTok’s emergency request to either block or pause enforcement of the law under an accelerated deadline just nine days before the ban was due to take effect.
But now TikTok will “go dark” until midnight on Sunday, O’Leary notes, adding that the clock is “ticking” to reach a deal.
“As of midnight on the 19th, any service provider — it could be Apple, it could be Oracle, it could be a video compression technology company paid as a consultancy, any of them — to keep this thing alive , it is subject to [a] 5000 dollars a day well multiplied by 170 million. That’s more than a billion dollars a day,” O’Leary explained.
O’Leary Ventures President Kevin O’Leary reacts to the latest developments surrounding the California wildfires, the potential sale of TikTok and his latest meeting with President-elect Trump at Mar-a-Lago.
President-elect Trump announced on Truth Social that his “decision on TikTok will be made in the not-too-distant future,” but as president, Trump could delay the law without enforcing it forcefully. This allows TikTok more time to find a buyer, continue operating as-is, or take other actions that would maintain the status quo.
“We don’t know if an executive order can override a law of Congress. There’s a case from 1937 that was used successfully, but you don’t know. So, from now on, unless a company goes into [an] deal to be bought by an American union, and Biden, who is currently the executive branch, is waving for 90 days, this thing goes dark at midnight,” O’Leary added.
“Because who will risk 1,000,000,007 at midnight? Who will do it? What advice would you give? This is the most interesting, most complicated, craziest situation I’ve ever been involved in. I’m really excited about it.”
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‘Shark Tank’ investor Kevin O’Leary describes how the Supreme Court upholding TikTok’s ban would help his bid to buy the platform’s US assets from ByteDance on ‘America Reports.’
On “Maria Bartiromo’s Wall Street” on Friday, new White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt confirmed that the president-elect is actively looking for ways to save TikTok.
“He has repeatedly said that he believes that TikTok is an app where tens of millions of Americans express their First Amendment rights and that the federal government cannot just take away that First Amendment right and violate the constitutional rights of tens of millions of Americans who freely express themselves on this app,” he said. is Leavitt. “That said, of course the best outcome for everyone is for an American company to own this application.”
Fox News’ Breanne Deppisch contributed to this report.
