“Shark Tank” investor plans to buy TikTok if bill to ban the app pushes through

On Friday, President Joe Biden voiced his support of an advancing bill aiming to crack down on the social media app TikTok over concerns that its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, compromises data security — with U.S. officials warning that China’s intelligence laws could leave the user information that TikTok collects vulnerable to prying eyes. While the ban would not be outright, it would move to bar it from U.S. app stores if ByteDance doesn’t sell it. And one well-known businessman is already eyeing the possibility.

In a recent appearance on Fox News’ “The Story,” “Shark Tank” investor Kevin O’Leary spoke to anchor Gillian Turner about the financial benefits of the app, especially in terms of advertising in the U.S., saying that he plans to swoop in and save it. “[It’s] not going to get banned, ‘cause I’m gonna buy it,” O’Leary said. “Somebody’s going to buy it, it won’t be Meta and it won’t be Google, ‘cause…regulator [will] stop that.”

Highlighting that TikTok is one of the most successful advertising platforms in social media today, and worth billions, O’Leary says that all of his companies use it, and he’s definitely not alone there. According to The Washington Post, the app has been downloaded 170 million times in the United States.

“The @HouseCommerce Committee just voted 50-0 to force TikTok to sever their ties with the Chinese Communist Party,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise wrote in a post to X (formerly Twitter) on Thursday. “I will bring this critical national security bill to the House floor for a vote next week.”

Per reporting from Reuters, TikTok maintains that “it has not and would not share U.S. user data with the Chinese government,” and that a resulting ban “will damage millions of businesses, deny artists an audience, and destroy the livelihoods of countless creators across the country.”