‘Shark Tank’ judge eyes TikTok acquisition through crowdfunding

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Canadian businessman and investor Kevin O’Leary has emerged as another potential buyer for TikTok’s US operations, South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported. O’Leary, known for his role in the television show Shark Tank, is looking to do this via crowdfunding and an initial bid of US$20 billion to US$30 billion.

His crowdfunding campaign calls on high-earning investors or those with finance qualifications get involved in potentially creating a US version of TikTok. O’Leary’s rivals include Frank McCourt, ex-owner of baseball team Los Angeles Dodgers, and Steven Mnuchin, former secretary of the US Department of Treasury.

Prior to O’Leary’s move, ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt also revealed this month that while he once considered acquiring TikTok, he was “not currently looking” at a deal.

TikTok’s prospective sale, however, remains contentious. Together with its parent company, ByteDance, the short-video app has filed a lawsuit to block its potential ban, and so has a US-based group of TikTok creators.

As the SCMP report points out, O’Leary doubts that China will part with TikTok and its algorithms. If this happens, the buyer would need to rebuild the platform, complicating the situation further.

According to a previous report, ByteDance might opt to pull TikTok out of the US – a relatively smaller market in its portfolio – rather than sell the algorithm-rich platform.

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