O’Leary defends his TikTok offer now competing against MrBeast as ‘only’ viable option

As the internet’s top creator MrBeast allegedly readies to enter the TikTok sale arena, “Mr. Wonderful” is defending his deal as the best and most viable option for the Chinese-owned social platform.

“The most, not troubling, but difficult part of this is in the fifth and sixth page of that order two Fridays ago from the Supreme Court, it specifically outlines: not a single line of code can be used from the existing Chinese algorithm. That’s 5 billion codes nobody can use,” Kevin O’Leary explained Thursday on “Varney & Co.”

“So now it comes back to which group — I don’t care how many people announced this — has the tech to support this. And as far as I know, it’s only the McCourt-O’Leary bid. We have the tech.”

O’Leary and billionaire entrepreneur Frank McCourt have put out a $20 billion cash offer to TikTok to purchase the app after the Supreme Court upheld Congress’ federal law requiring the company to divest to a U.S. buyer or face a user ban.

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The Associated Press reported that, on Tuesday, a law firm advising Recruiter.com Ventures founder and CEO Jesse Tinsley’s TikTok offer named Jimmy Donaldson — better known as MrBeast — as an interested party in the deal.

Adding to speculation, Donaldson had posted on X on Jan. 13 that he’d “buy TikTok so it doesn’t get banned,” adding the next day that “I’ve had so many billionaires reach out to me since I tweeted this, let’s see if we can pull this off.”

But a representative for Donaldson confirmed to The Associated Press on Wednesday that MrBeast hasn’t officially joined any bids, saying: “Several buyers are holding ongoing discussions with Jimmy… He has no exclusive agreements with any of them.”

“The only two that can decide what’s going to happen here are [President Donald] Trump and Xi [Jinping]. And so Xi has not yet indicated if he wants to sell it, that’s the next step,” O’Leary expanded. “If he does, everybody’s happy with whatever Trump comes back with as long as it complies with the laws of Congress and the order from the Supreme Court.”

“We’ve been to the Hill this week talking to senators and congressmen about what we’ve got,” Mr. Wonderful added. “We can move it over without a single line of Chinese code and allow Americans to sequester their own data so there’s no leakage. And I’m hoping that’s, [at] the end of the day, why this deal comes to us.”

Though TikTok’s future operation and ownership remains uncertain, President Trump signed an executive order on his first day in the Oval Office that extends its divest-or-ban deadline by 75 days, giving the Chinese social media app more time to decide on a buyer.

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