Shark Tank investor says he would buy TikTok to prevent the platform from getting banned in the U.S.

Shark Tank investor says he would buy TikTok to prevent the platform from getting banned in the U.S.،

Last week, a bipartisan bill was introduced that could mean the end of the popular video app TikTok in the United States. The proposed legislation would ban TikTok in the United States if its parent company, ByteDance, does not sell its stake in the app. ByteDance is a Chinese company, and U.S. lawmakers are concerned about TikTok's ties to China and fear the company is collecting the personal data of TikTok subscribers.

The bill was introduced by Reps. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.); the two men are top lawmakers on the special committee of the Chinese Communist Party's House of Representatives. If the bill becomes law, ByteDance would have more than five months to divest itself from TikTok. If ByteDance holds its ground, distribution of TikTok will become illegal from a US app storefront or online hosting platform.

But according to The hill, there is a deep-pocketed investor who said on Friday that he would buy the platform if it were to be banned. Shark Tank investor Kevin O'Leary, who sold The Learning Channel to Mattel for $3.2 billion in 1999, said on Fox News that he would buy TikTok if the platform was about to be prohibited. I'm not going to get banned, because I'm going to buy it,” O'Leary said on Fox News' “The Story.” He went on to say: “Someone is going to buy it, it's not going to be Meta and it's not going to be Google, because… the regulator [will] stop that.”

Kevin O'Leary says he won't let TikTok be banned in the US

The investor known sarcastically as Mr. Wonderful on ABC's long-running TV show Shark Tank said of TikTok: “It's worth billions, it's one of the most successful advertising platforms on networks social media today. All my businesses use it, I'll buy.” he.”

TikTok spokesperson Alex Haurek told The Hill: “This bill is an outright ban on TikTok, no matter how hard the perpetrators try to cover it up. This legislation will trample on the First Amendment rights of 170 million Americans and deprive 5 million small businesses of a platform. they count on them to grow and create jobs. » President Joe Biden already said Friday that if the bill gets out of Congress, he will sign it.

In terms of average monthly users, TikTok is the fourth largest social media platform in the world. It currently has over 1 billion average monthly users. Since its launch in 2016, the app has been installed more than 3 billion times.