Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: The Supreme Court is hearing arguments about whether it will
Speaker 2: uphold a law banning TikTok in the US if it's
Speaker 2: not sold by its Chinese parent company by January nineteenth.
Speaker 3: I am Romaine Bostic.
Speaker 1: And I'm Scarlet Fou and we've been reading analyst notes
Speaker 1: that indicate that the oral arguments suggest to some folks
Speaker 1: that the Supreme Court is likely to accept Congress's ban
Speaker 1: of TikTok, which would takeffect on January nineteenth, one day
Speaker 1: before the inauguration.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's kind of interesting. I mean, this hearing's
Speaker 2: been going on for a while and we've gotten some
Speaker 2: trips and drabs of information, but we're still waiting for
Speaker 2: kind of a formal announcement from the court about what
Speaker 2: they will or won't do.
Speaker 1: And so far, the Supreme Court justices have signaled that
Speaker 1: they may uphold, of course, this upcoming ban or forced
Speaker 1: to divest the company by the Chinese owner. Byte Dance.
Speaker 1: Frank McCourt leads internet advocacy group Project Liberty, and he
Speaker 1: sent a formal offer to China's Bike Dance in the
Speaker 1: hopes of buying TikTok head of that new law taking effect.
Speaker 4: Take a listen, were the right buyers because we have
Speaker 4: put all the pieces together, We have the funding, we've
Speaker 4: worked through all the legal issues.
Speaker 3: We've put a formal offer, as.
Speaker 4: You point out, right in front of Byte Dance, so
Speaker 4: they have something now to react to, and most importantly,
Speaker 4: we have the clean American tech stack. In order to sell,
Speaker 4: they need to enter into an agreement, which is why
Speaker 4: we put a formal offer in front of them in
Speaker 4: the last twenty four hours.
Speaker 1: Joining us now for more on this effort is one
Speaker 1: of the names backing the project Liberty Bid for TikTok,
Speaker 1: a partner of Frank Lacourt. He is Kevin O'Leary, chairman
Speaker 1: of o'liary Adventures. Kevin, it's good to speak with you.
Speaker 1: As you know, any sale of TikTok would require consent
Speaker 1: from China's Byte Dance. What's the specific argument that your
Speaker 1: group is making to them for why it's in their
Speaker 1: best interest to a divest and b sell to you.
Speaker 5: Well, I give up forty billion dollars worth of value.
Speaker 3: Why is that good for anybody?
Speaker 5: You've got to remember that within Byte Dance are some
Speaker 5: of the world's largest financial institutions as shareholders, including many
Speaker 5: billions worth of American dollars, and so one of the
Speaker 5: options if this plays out the way I listen to
Speaker 5: every word of the hearing, so I'm obviously an interested party,
Speaker 5: and the government made a very clear case that this
Speaker 5: is not about free speech. It will be freer and
Speaker 5: there'll be lots of speaking after we buy it. This
Speaker 5: has everything to do with the spyware aspect of byte Dance,
Speaker 5: and they're not going to tolerate it anymore. Why this
Speaker 5: bipartisan order is going to be upheld, I believe that
Speaker 5: to be the case. When that occurs could be as
Speaker 5: early as next week, could be today, We don't know.
Speaker 5: The company will have a binary decision either to shut
Speaker 5: it down, turn it off, or find a buyer. The
Speaker 5: only syndicate is our offer last night. So we would
Speaker 5: like to engage in a process obviously, and we're willing buyers.
Speaker 3: But the real issue for byte.
Speaker 5: Dance and the Supreme Leader of China is what message
Speaker 5: do you send to the world world's capital pools when
Speaker 5: you're competing to become the largest economy on earth that
Speaker 5: on a whim you would erase thirty forty fifty billion
Speaker 5: dollars worth of value and just take your bicycle and
Speaker 5: go home. I mean, that is a very bad look
Speaker 5: if you're trying to raise capital at the lowest cost.
Speaker 5: So my thinking is that somebody's going to say, wait
Speaker 5: a second, yeah, we should sell it and let it
Speaker 5: go on. And that's what I'm hoping, and so is
Speaker 5: Frank So.
Speaker 1: Kevin, you've been vocal about wanting to buy TikTok for
Speaker 1: a while now, for almost a year, and you've floated
Speaker 1: this twenty billion dollar number without the algorithm purchasing TikTok.
Speaker 1: But without that algorithm, why or how is TikTok worth
Speaker 1: that amount if you don't get the famous for you
Speaker 1: recommendation engine.
Speaker 5: You know, I'm very familiar with this platform and have
Speaker 5: been using it for years through the proxy of all
Speaker 5: the companies I invest in. I have the data every
Speaker 5: Tuesday on cap on every single social media platform. So
Speaker 5: because I don't have the data room yet, I'm just
Speaker 5: going to give you some estimates. There's about seven million
Speaker 5: small businesses products sort of between one and three million
Speaker 5: in sales, five to five hundred employees, represent sixty two
Speaker 5: percent of job creation in America. Most of them are
Speaker 5: on TikTok and they're all my people.
Speaker 3: These are two generations of shark tankers.
Speaker 5: I'm going to guess that ninety five percent of them
Speaker 5: know me and I would like to bring them on
Speaker 5: the journey with me. And I want to use equity
Speaker 5: crowdfunding to do that so they can be my partner
Speaker 5: going at the same deal I'm investing in, and we
Speaker 5: go into this deal together. Now we're going to add
Speaker 5: a lot of features that TikTok doesn't have. And we've
Speaker 5: been talking about this together. And one of the reasons
Speaker 5: that my Cord and Olier got together in the first
Speaker 5: place is we both have things the other doesn't have,
Speaker 5: so it makes sense to merge. But one of the
Speaker 5: things I want to do, and so does Frank, is
Speaker 5: to say, okay, these people are partners if they have
Speaker 5: their personal data on it. Like take me, for example,
Speaker 5: I'm a watch collector. I'm not interested in car ads.
Speaker 5: I don't collect cars. I collect watches. I only want
Speaker 5: to see watch adds, right, and if you're going to
Speaker 5: sell my data, I want a piece of the action.
Speaker 3: We'll do that.
Speaker 5: We'll also make it interoperable. If you're posting. If you're
Speaker 5: President Trump, you're posting on truth Social click here to
Speaker 5: populate TikTok. We we'll open that for him. We'll open
Speaker 5: that for any platform. So that adds a lot of
Speaker 5: value and makes it, what I like to say, whimsically,
Speaker 5: we'll make TikTok wonderful again.
Speaker 1: A shout out to of course your nickname. Frank McCourt
Speaker 1: has said that the group plans to work with Donald
Speaker 1: Trump to close a deal. Have you talked recently with
Speaker 1: presidentlect Trump specifically about TikTok? I asked, because it's not
Speaker 1: totally clear where the President elect stands on this. I
Speaker 1: mean he was for the band and now he's not
Speaker 1: so much for the band.
Speaker 5: Yes, last weekend specifically on this topic, and I'm going
Speaker 5: tomorrow again tomorrow logos specifically for this topic. We intend
Speaker 5: to work on a bipartisan basis with both parties as
Speaker 5: we have to currently. If the order gets turned back
Speaker 5: to the executive that's Biden, he has the right to
Speaker 5: extend it for ninety days and then of course at
Speaker 5: twelve oh five on the January twentieth, we're working for Trump.
Speaker 5: So this, you know, entrepreneurship and TikTok is a bipartisan platform.
Speaker 5: So we're working hard with both administrations right now, keeping
Speaker 5: them in the loop, letting them know everything.
Speaker 3: We're doing, asking to work with them.
Speaker 5: Regardless of what the outcome is, you know, in terms
Speaker 5: of timing of the decision. But we think it's going
Speaker 5: to happen very shortly and probably next week, and we
Speaker 5: will need to be working with the Trump with Trump
Speaker 5: and I also think probably Mike, Mike Waltz, I mean,
Speaker 5: whoever is going to be the oversight on it.
Speaker 3: We're going to work with them.
Speaker 5: Whatever they need, We're going to give them.
Speaker 2: Kevin remain bossic here. I am curious about the idea
Speaker 2: that for some reason they do get a reprieve from
Speaker 2: the court and it does open up opportunity for you
Speaker 2: and Frank to move forward with this here. Do you
Speaker 2: worry at all about kind of the legal morass around this?
Speaker 2: I mean, even if the Supreme Court kids it's clearance,
Speaker 2: there's still sort of an international legal maras that is
Speaker 2: going to hang over this, I would think, and I
Speaker 2: do wonder about how you navigate that in a world
Speaker 2: that is just going to be a lot different, let's
Speaker 2: face it, over the next few years.
Speaker 5: Well, one of the reasons Frank and I got together.
Speaker 5: You may find this strange, is we both have six
Speaker 5: one seven area codes on our cell phone. I know
Speaker 5: that sounds nuts, but that's eighty percent of a deal
Speaker 5: because you got you You're a Boston dude if you
Speaker 5: have a six one seven, a real Boston dude, because
Speaker 5: they don't give that number out anymore. So I knew
Speaker 5: we'd know everybody in each other's teams, and in fact
Speaker 5: we did.
Speaker 3: We love hairball deals.
Speaker 5: We love crazy complicated hairball deals because it's.
Speaker 3: A mote that's you know, I don't know who's going
Speaker 3: to compete with us.
Speaker 5: I really don't know who's got what we have together.
Speaker 3: Bring it, if you got it, bring it.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, then let's get to this idea of the
Speaker 2: idea of what the social media space looks like, Kevin
Speaker 2: and the competition in there. I mean, we're all making
Speaker 2: our choices about where we want to be, how we
Speaker 2: engage here. I've talked with Frank a lot, and I
Speaker 2: know he has a very grand vision for what he
Speaker 2: thinks social media should be. A way to make it
Speaker 2: more informative, maybe even a little kinder, and certainly more
Speaker 2: consistent here. I assume you kind of have the same ethos.
Speaker 5: Yes, I agree with everything in terms of his philosophy
Speaker 5: of opening up and democratizing the data.
Speaker 3: But I want to take it even a step further.
Speaker 5: To me, TikTok is the world's largest television network.
Speaker 3: As soon as Frank.
Speaker 5: And I get done here getting this set up, We're
Speaker 5: going to India, Switzerland, France, Germany, England, Canada. We will
Speaker 5: have this lit up everywhere people believe in democracy and
Speaker 5: freedom of speech, and we will own and be part
Speaker 5: of the largest television network on earth. That is the
Speaker 5: vision that we both share. This is not about the money.
Speaker 5: This is a legacy deal for us. I mean, this
Speaker 5: is a This deal is global, it's huge, it's complicated,
Speaker 5: it's got a million hairballs on it, and.
Speaker 3: It's just perfect for us.
Speaker 2: Kevin, I'm gonna leave it there, Kevin O'Leary, Chairman of
Speaker 2: O'Leary Ventures, as we will wait the Supreme Court's decision
Speaker 2: here and whether to uphold that band on TikTok