Chief executive officer of O'Leary Ventures and investor on "Shark Tank," Kevin O'Leary, said Fox News on Thursday that he is still interested in buying TikTok should a measure that is now working its way through Congress become law.
O'Leary said that Steven Mnuchin, the former Treasury Secretary, is among the few other possible bidders.
But he cautioned that the Chinese owners of TikTok will never sell their algorithm to American management, so any buyer in the United States will have to factor in the expense of essentially keeping the user base of the application and purging it of its nefarious data mining without sacrificing its consumer-facing features.
"I anticipate fierce competition... nonetheless, we all confront the same obstacle," O'Leary said on "The Story."
As of right now, we have no idea how to handle the fact that a database on Americans is on American computers; this database is known as the Texas Project. It is okay that Oracle has servers in Texas, but the algorithms that power this system are not and will not ever be available in America.
According to O'Leary, the governing Chinese Communist Party passed a legislation that forbids businesses such as ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, from selling its secret technology, thus it will be difficult to ascertain the precise total cost of acquisition domestically.
O'Leary said that Steven Mnuchin, the former Treasury Secretary, is among the few other possible bidders.
But he cautioned that the Chinese owners of TikTok will never sell their algorithm to American management, so any buyer in the United States will have to factor in the expense of essentially keeping the user base of the application and purging it of its nefarious data mining without sacrificing its consumer-facing features.
"I anticipate fierce competition... nonetheless, we all confront the same obstacle," O'Leary said on "The Story."
As of right now, we have no idea how to handle the fact that a database on Americans is on American computers; this database is known as the Texas Project. It is okay that Oracle has servers in Texas, but the algorithms that power this system are not and will not ever be available in America.
According to O'Leary, the governing Chinese Communist Party passed a legislation that forbids businesses such as ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, from selling its secret technology, thus it will be difficult to ascertain the precise total cost of acquisition domestically.
