Canadian businessman and investor Kevin O’Leary has offered $20 billion in cash to buy TikTok from its owners.
This offer comes after a bipartisan bill, signed by President Biden, deemed TikTok a national security threat and required its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to divest or sell the platform to remain in American app stores by Sunday.
The Supreme Court upheld the ban on TikTok on Friday. During an appearance on Fox News’s “America’s Newsroom,” O’Leary mentioned the potential fines for any provider that allows access to TikTok after the deadline.
He emphasized that any service provider could face a $5,000 daily fine, totaling over a billion dollars a day. O’Leary also expressed uncertainty about whether an executive order could override a law from Congress.
He reiterated his $20 billion cash offer to buy TikTok, which has 170 million U.S. users, and stated that he is waiting to see if the offer is sufficient.