Kevin O’Leary says he has a plan to save TikTok from a U.S. ban.
The investor, of Shark Tank fame, told Fox News he and former Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt, 71, have teamed up with other businessman to raise funds to purchase the Beijing-based social media giant’s U.S. assets.
O’Leary, a Montreal native who lives in Miami Beach and is an ally of incoming President-elect Donald Trump, says he is part of a “multi-billion-dollar deal”—one that is critical for Americans who hope to use TikTok beyond Jan. 20.
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That’s the date a ban will be put in place if TikTok’s parent company, Bytedance, is unable to sell off its U.S. assets to an American or American company.
O’Leary, 70, said the deal will require “bipartisan support,” adding that he plans to inform both Joe Biden—who signed a bill that threatened a ban in the first place—and Donald Trump of his deal.
“We’re going to need their help,” O’Leary said.
It’s unclear how much such a deal would cost. TikTok itself is estimated to be worth as much as $100 billion, Bytedance has claimed, but O’Leary’s deal is focused only on the app’s U.S. assets and its 170 million users who are based here.
O’Leary is worth an estimated $400 million and McCourt is worth an estimated $1.4 billion.
Concerns about TikTok have been around since Trump’s first presidency. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have expressed concerns that the social network might double as a spyware app for the Chinese government. Everyday Americans, however, are much less likely to support the ban, Pew Research found. Just 32 percent of U.S. survey respondents said they are in favor of the app being taken down here.
TikTok has gone to great lengths to stop a ban‚ including the filing of a lawsuit against the federal government, but have had no significant success to date. They may soon have a U.S. president in power that it more open to striking a new deal, however.
Trump’s lawyers told the Supreme Court last month they may not need to weigh in on a challenge to the ban if they hold off on taking action until he returns to the Oval Office, which he is set to do one day after the ban is set to go in place.
“President Trump alone possesses the consummate dealmaking expertise, the electoral mandate, and the political will to negotiate a resolution to save the platform while addressing the national security concerns,” wrote John Sauer, who is Trump’s nominee for U.S. solicitor general, in the filing.
Trump clamored on the campaign trail that he would “save TikTok,” but stopped short on saying how he would do so while protecting American users’ privacy—a concern that spans representatives of both parties.
The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments for TikTok’s challenge on Friday.
