‘Shark Tank’ star Kevin O’Leary wants to buy TikTok—and says he needs Trump’s help

Kevin O’Leary of Shark Tank fame and billionaire Frank McCourt, ex-owner of the Dodgers, are teaming up to save TikTok from a looming U.S. ban. Their coalition, the People’s Bid for TikTok, aims to buy the app’s U.S. operations, promising a platform that prioritizes the privacy of TikTok’s roughly 170 million American users.

“This isn’t just about buying TikTok’s U.S. assets,” O’Leary said in a statement on X on Monday. “It’s about something much bigger: protecting the privacy of 170 million American users. It’s about empowering creators and small businesses. And it’s about building a platform that prioritizes people over algorithms.”

O’Leary insists he can’t do it alone. “Trump will be who we have to work with to close the deal in the months ahead,” he said during a recent appearance on Fox News’ The Story with Martha MacCallum. “So, I wanted to let him know—as well as others in his cabinet—that we’re doing this, and we’re going to need their help.”

TikTok’s future currently hangs by a thread as a January 19 deadline approaches. A 2024 bipartisan law mandates ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent, to sell the platform to a U.S. company before the deadline—the day before Trump’s inauguration—or face a nationwide ban.

In December, McCourt, the founder of Project Liberty and executive chairman of McCourt Global, unveiled plans to assemble a team to acquire TikTok. Dubbed the “People’s Bid for TikTok,” this consortium is spearheaded by Project Liberty with a mission to empower users by giving them control over their own data. According to the Project Liberty website, McCourt has reportedly secured verbal commitments of up to $20 billion to back the purchase.

But O’Leary and McCourt are not the only ones throwing their hat in the ring. Some have suspected Amazon as one of the potential buyers, especially after the two companies teamed up this year to let users browse and buy Amazon products on TikTok. Oracle and Walmart might also try again to buy TikTok, after their 2020 attempt was stopped by the Biden administration due to security concerns. Whether or not Microsoft reenters the picture remains to be seen, even though CEO Satya Nadella said he was “happy with what I have” when talks initially fell through in 2020.

Just last year, after news of the upcoming ban broke, a number of bids were made. Video-sharing site Rumble offered to buy TikTok in March and said it would join a group of companies looking to acquire it. Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin also has shown interest, telling CNBC in March that he planned to form a group to make an offer. Whether someone can save TikTok, we will have to wait and see.