The photo illustration shows the TikTok logo displayed on a mobile phone screen.
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Canadian investor Kevin O’Leary remains interested in doing business with TikTok, but it’s not possible under current law, he told CNBC, since President Donald Trump extended the deadline to ban the social media platform.
As part of a wave of executive orders following his inauguration on Monday, Trump delayed the imposition of the law for 75 days this would lead to an effective ban on TikTok, allowing its administration “an opportunity to determine the appropriate course of action”.
Trump promised a move by the U posting on social networks on Sunday, also outlining a deal that would see the platform remain active in the US under a joint venture with 50% US ownership.
“On that 50/50 deal, I would love to work with Trump, as I would with any other potential buyer… But the problem with some of these ideas is that they are inconsistent with the Supreme Court ruling,” said the investor, widely known for to his role on ABC’s “Shark Tank.”
O’Leary announced that he, along with “People offer for TikTok,” effort led by Project Liberty founder Frank McCourt offered ByteDance $20 billion in cash to buy TikTok in an appearance on “America’s newsroom” of Fox News.
Speaking to CNBC, he said the proposed deal does not include ByteDance’s TikTok algorithm, which has been a key point of scrutiny by US lawmakers, adding that his group had an alternative algorithm.
ByteDance did not announce any deals ahead of Sunday’s deadline to separate from TikTok after the Supreme Court supported the The Protecting Americans from Apps Controlled by a Foreign Enemy Actor PAFACA, relating to TikTok.
McCourt confirmed to CNBC that the Project Liberty team remains “ready to work with the Trump administration, ByteDance and a consortium of US partners to finalize this critical deal.”
“Project Liberty has a proven technology stack already in use and offers a clear path to address Congress’s national security concerns while keeping TikTok operational,” he added.
Legal obstacles
Companies involved in TikTok had mixed reactions to Trump’s executive order. Service providers such as Oracle and Akamai have willingly kept TikTok online, while Apple and Google have yet to return ByteDance-owned apps to their stores.
According to O’Leary, while Trump’s extension of the ban likely provided protection to companies like Oracle and Akamai, it is unclear whether ByteDance will be given an extension to sell.
“What we need is not really a 75-day extension. What we need is to go back and ask Congress to open up the order and allow these new options, because they’re not provided right now,” he said.
“I would like to make a deal, if the law provides for it, but I don’t have the luxury of going against the order of Congress,” he added.
Legal experts who spoke to CNBC agreed that TikTok’s legal status and Trump’s executive order remain uncertain, and that any attempt to strike a deal with TikTok could face challenges.
“The Order appears to be inconsistent with the statute. Congress carefully built certain dates and procedures into the law, which SCOTUS found to be constitutional,” said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond.
“Therefore, a federal court could find that the Order violates the law and strike it down,” he said, adding, however, that such action could take a long time if the government appeals to SCOTUS.
WITHarah Kreps, director of the Technology Policy Institute at Cornell University, agreed that the executive order was inconsistent with the Supreme Court decision, adding that it said nothing about progress toward qualified forfeiture.
Given that violators of the TikTok law could face billions in fines, it’s not entirely prudent for parties to take Trump’s assurances about the law and the SCOTUS ruling at face value, Kreps said.
“They are certainly gambling with the law and placing significant trust in the executive,” she added.
China is softening its stance
O’Leary told CNBC that TikTok could reach 20-30 billion dollars on the market last March, a big discount, given that any sale would likely shut down the platform’s algorithms.
Instead, the value in the potential deal was the opportunity to acquire TikTok and its strong domestic brand over 100 million usershe said.
Still, around the time talks about selling TikTok intensified, Beijing was seen as such the main obstacle until the sale of BytdeDance.
On Monday, Beijing signaled openness to a deal that would see American companies acquire ownership of the platform.
“When it comes to actions such as the operation and acquisition of companies, we believe they should be decided by companies independently in accordance with market principles,” a Beijing spokesman said Monday when asked about President Donald Trump’s proposal.
According to O’Leary, any potential sale of ByteDance is still expected to be subject to negotiations between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“With TikTok, I have the right to either sell it or shut it down, and we will decide that, and we may have to get China’s approval,” Trump told reporters after the inauguration.
While signing the executive order, the president reportedly suggested that he could impose tariffs on China if Beijing does not approve the US deal with TikTok. On Tuesday, he said he would consider the likelihood Tesla CEO Elon Musk or the president of Oracle Larry Ellison buying TikTok.
Meanwhile, O’Leary told CNBC that he is in Washington and still working on a potential TikTok deal with US lawmakers.
