Kevin O'Leary says he's offering $20B cash for TikTok

Investor Kevin O’Leary, widely known as a star from “Shark Tank,” said he offered TikTok’s owners $20 billion in cash to buy the platform during a Friday appearance on Fox News’s “America’s Newsroom.”

A bipartisan bill, which President Biden signed, called TikTok a threat to national security and forces ByteDance, the platform's Chinese parent company, to divest from the platform or sell it in order for TikTok to remain in American app stores. ByteDance's deadline is Sunday.

The Supreme Court ruled Friday on TikTok's challenge to the law, upholding the ban.

O'Leary made note of the fines that could be in store for any provider that allows access after the deadline.

“As of midnight on the 19, any service provider ... that could be an Apple, that could be an Oracle, it could be a video compression technology company that's being paid as a consulting service, any of them that keep this thing alive is subject to $5,000 a day fine times 170 million,” O’Leary told anchor Bill Hemmer in the interview. “That's over a billion dollars a day.”

He said companies are weighing risk factors in keeping the app available amid a shrinking timeline.

O'Leary said the leadership of companies hosting the TikTok app are certainly getting counseled on whether any fines would take effect, based on a potential action from the incoming Trump administration.

“We don't know if an executive order can override a law from Congress. There's a case in 1937 that was used successfully, but you don't know.”

The Canadian businessman said he believed the federal government hasn’t been able to confirm if American account holders' data is being shared with China’s leaders, but that it wasn’t worth the risk.

“Nobody knows the extent of which the algorithm provides data. It's been highly speculated,” he stated.

O'Leary said he thought the risk prompted the high court's opinion upholding the ban Friday.

“There's a reason they ruled in favor of it. It's not worth taking the risk,” O’Leary emphasized.

Lawmakers including President-elect Trump have been working to find a solution for the platform, which boasts 170 million U.S. users.

“Right now, $20 billion is on the table, cash, cash, $20 billion,” O’Leary said touting his bid at the conclusion of the call-in.

He said he's waiting to see if the offer is enough.

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