Kevin O’Leary Slams Trump’s $500 Million Spirit Airlines Bailout: ‘Let Failing Companies Die’

O’Leary says government bailouts like Spirit Airlines’ reward bad management and weaken free markets—even if jobs are saved.

BY BRUCE CRUMLEY @BRUCEC_INC

Kevin O’Leary. Illustration: Inc; Photo: Getty Images

Venture capitalist, billionaire, and Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary has earned a reputation for having remarkably strong opinions—and often expressing those with a razor-sharp tongue. Now the politically conservative business leader known as “Mr. Wonderful” is lashing out at a somewhat unexpected target: the Trump administration’s continued investment of public money into private companies.

O’Leary publicly backed Trump’s 2024 re-election, and clearly views the U.S. president as a kindred spirit to his own conservative political activity in his native Canada. But the man who made $4.2 billion selling his Learning Co. company to Mattel in 2023 has mostly lowered his profile in American political commentary and discourse over the last year, and has instead focused on what he does........

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