Billionaire and Shark Tank co-host Kevin O’Leary said there would be roadblocks related to a potential purchase of TikTok, which has been discussed as a possibility in recent weeks.
The House of Representatives voted 352-65 last week to pass the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which would require TikTok to either separate itself entirely from its Chinese parent company ByteDance or risk getting banned in the United States. O’Leary, who has described TikTok as one of the largest networks in the world, noted that a sale of TikTok with its algorithm will likely not happen, as China is protective of the data of its own people.
“So when people talk about this being a $100 billion transaction, no chance,” O’Leary said on Fox News’s The Story with Martha MacCallum. “If they’re not selling the algorithm, I have to rebuild it from scratch.”
Ahead of the House’s vote, O’Leary expressed interest in purchasing the platform to make it an “American company.”
O’Leary predicted that if such a sale were possible, $40 billion would be much closer to the actual sale price without TikTok’s algorithm. He also reiterated that the potential sale of TikTok would not happen until the Senate votes on the legislation.
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Last week, former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he is interested in forming a group of investors to buy TikTok, calling it “a great business” and suggesting it be owned by American businesses.
Similarly, Chris Pavlovski, the CEO of video platform Rumble, stated Tuesday that Rumble would be ready to join “a consortium” of other parties to acquire and operate TikTok in the U.S. should it divest itself from ByteDance. Rumble has gained traction in the market of video-based social media platforms as a free speech alternative to YouTube.
