Kevin O’Leary claims China’s Xi Jinping ‘doesn’t give a rodent’s rear end’ about 1 critical asset — and says investors are waking up. Are you ready?

“I was going to make one observation regarding negotiating with Xi, which is unique to every other country,” O’Leary said during a recent appearance on Fox Business. “Xi — and I know Trump would not do this to him — would never submit himself to the rotisserie chicken White House press conference. Never. That’s never going to happen.”

He pointed out that negotiations with China are more delicate because of how Xi operates — and that the TikTok situation is just one example of how fraught things have become.

O’Leary revealed he’s among a group of investors syndicating a bid to acquire the U.S. assets of TikTok, calling the deal “complicated” with many moving parts. But one thing isn’t moving: the deadline.

“Midnight, September 17,” O’Leary said. That’s the date TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, must divest its U.S. operations. If it doesn’t, the platform faces a full ban.

O’Leary said he initially believed Trump might delay the decision again — but he now sees the situation differently. “Many of the lawmakers who wrote this anti-spyware law… are done. They’re done,” he said.

“So what I think is going to happen now is [TikTok] will probably go dark on September 17,” he predicted.

Will the dominoes start to fall?

O’Leary noted that TikTok’s U.S. business represents about 8.4% of ByteDance’s market cap — not enough on its own to cause panic.

The real risk, he argued, lies in what happens next.

“All of a sudden, what those of us that are very involved in the TikTok deal are hearing, Canada says, ‘Wait a second.’ If it goes dark in the US — lights out in Canada, then you're over in Europe. Other countries say, ‘Well, wait a minute. It must be spyware if the U.S. shut it off,’ just like India did. And slowly but surely, that market cap is being chiseled at — one country at a time.”

He called it a “domino effect of market cap.”

And even beyond the international fallout, O’Leary warned that once TikTok goes dark in the U.S., users and advertisers will flee — dragging down the platform’s valuation.

Right now, O’Leary and his syndicate have lined up $20 billion in debt and equity for the deal. But if the platform gets shut down?

“We could do more, but the minute it's dark, I don't know. Is it $20 billion anymore?”

The implications are serious for ByteDance shareholders. But according to O’Leary, it won’t move the needle for China’s top leader.

“Do you think Xi gives a boop about $20 billion? He doesn’t give a boop about $20 billion… It’s such a rounding error.” O’Leary said. “All shareholders are waking up to this, all investors. But it's not Trump that's holding the TikTok deal up — it's Xi. And the more I watch this, the more I realize he doesn't give a rodent’s rear end.”

The lesson, O’Leary says, isn’t limited to TikTok — it’s a wake-up call for anyone considering investing in Chinese companies.

“You’ve got to think about that going forward, when you're putting together an international fund, how much of these Chinese golden share companies do I [want to own]? I'm not going to own any,” he said.

O’Leary’s warning underscores a broader concern: rising geopolitical risks and unpredictable trade tensions can rattle even the biggest names in global business. For investors, that uncertainty is a powerful reminder of the need to hedge their portfolios — and protect their wealth from shocks that can ripple across borders.

A safe haven shines again

In turbulent times, investors often seek out assets that can weather the storm. One that continues to stand out, according to legendary hedge fund manager Ray Dalio, is gold.

“People don't have, typically, an adequate amount of gold in their portfolio,” Dalio told CNBC earlier this year. “When bad times come, gold is a very effective diversifier.”

Long seen as the ultimate safe haven, gold isn’t tied to any single country, currency or economy. It can’t be printed out of thin air like fiat money and in times of economic turmoil or geopolitical uncertainty, investors tend to pile in — driving up its value.

Over the past 12 months, gold prices have surged more than 35%.

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A time-tested income play

If gold is the go-to hedge for moments of chaos, real estate is the long game. While property values can fluctuate — just like stocks — real estate doesn’t rely on a booming market to generate returns.

Even in a recession, high quality, essential properties keep generating passive income through rent. In other words, you don’t have to wait for prices to rise to see a payoff — the asset itself can work for you.

Legendary investor Warren Buffett has often pointed to real estate as a prime example of a productive, income-generating asset.