Kevin O’Leary puts $20B TikTok cash offer on the table: ‘Most interesting, complicated, crazy situation’

It’s a deal that TikTok may not be able to refuse: $20 billion in cash from popular entrepreneur and “Shark Tank” investor Kevin O’Leary.

“Right now, $20 billion’s on the table. Cash,” O’Leary said on “America’s Newsroom” Friday, just minutes after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a law requiring the Chinese-owned company to sell or be banned.

“There’s a reason that Congress put this order in front of the Supreme Court. There’s a reason they ruled in favor of it. It’s not worth taking the risk,” he continued. “And so the obvious solution is to sell it to an American syndicate as per the order.”

In its decision, the Supreme Court backed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, a law passed by Congress last April with wide bipartisan support. The law gave TikTok nine months to either divest from its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, or be removed from U.S.-based app stores and hosting services.

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Congress originally cited concerns over the app’s Chinese ownership, which members said meant the app had the potential to be weaponized or used to amass vast amounts of user data, including from the roughly 170 million Americans who use TikTok.

TikTok, ByteDance and several users of the app swiftly sued to block the ban in May, arguing the legislation would suppress free speech for the millions of Americans who use the platform. After a lower court upheld the ban, the Supreme Court agreed to hear TikTok’s emergency request to either block or pause implementation of the law under a fast-track timeline just nine days before the ban was slated to go into effect.

But now, TikTok will “go dark” by midnight on Jan. 19, O’Leary notes, while adding that the clock is “ticking” to strike a deal.

“As of midnight on the 19th, 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 – to keep this thing alive, it’s subject to [a] $5,000 a day fine times 170 million. That’s over $1 billion a day,” O’Leary explained.

President-elect Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that his “decision on TikTok will be made in the not too distant future,” but as president, Trump could move to delay the law, either by not enforcing it vigorously. This allows TikTok more time to find a buyer, continue operating as-is or take other actions that would uphold the status quo.

“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. So as of right now, unless the company enters into [an] agreement to be purchased by an American syndicate, and Biden, who’s the executive right now, waves for 90 days, this thing goes dark at midnight,” O’Leary added.

“Because who’s going to take on 1,000,000,007 risks at midnight? Who’s going to do that? What counsel would advise? This is the most interesting, complicated, crazy situation I’ve ever been involved in. I’m really excited about it.”

On “Maria Bartiromo’s Wall Street” on Friday, incoming White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed that the president-elect is actively looking at ways to save TikTok.

“He has said repeatedly that he believes TikTok is an app that tens of millions of Americans are expressing their First Amendment rights on and the federal government can’t just shut off the First Amendment right and violate the constitutional right of tens of millions of Americans who are expressing themselves freely on this app,” Leavitt said. “With that said, of course the best outcome for everyone is for an American company to own this app.”

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Fox News’ Breanne Deppisch contributed to this report.