TikTok Hosts Deceptive ‘Shark Tank’ Clips — for Profit
TikTok accounts looking to trick users into buying their products have been misrepresenting “Shark Tank” panelist Mark Cuban’s investment decisions, NewsGuard found
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What happened: TikTok accounts are manipulating clips from ABC’s popular “Shark Tank” investment show to create fake promotions of products sold on TikTok Shop in an apparent effort to drive sales and earn commissions through deceptive marketing, NewsGuard found. These faked videos, which racked up millions of views, purport to show investor Mark Cuban endorsing or investing in the products.
A closer look: The accounts hosting false promotions link to products sold on TikTok’s online marketplace TikTok Shop, where creators earn a commission for each item sold through links on their videos and where TikTok drives sales through its platform. The videos contain a label stating, “Eligible for commission,” and both the video creators and TikTok receive a percentage of sales.
By relying on the endorsement of “Shark Tank,” a 16-year-old reality show in which hopeful entrepreneurs pitch their products to a panel of wealthy investors seeking their funding, these accounts appear to be leveraging the show’s credibility to mislead viewers and drive sales.
Cuban, the billionaire owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, is among the show's regular panelists — known as “sharks” — along with Lori Greiner, Kevin O’Leary, and Robert Herjavec.
NewsGuard identified four viral TikTok videos that deceptively repurpose footage of Cuban to promote products for sale on TikTok Shop. The online marketplace is now the fourth most popular social commerce platform in the U.S., according to a March 2025 report from Capital One.
The misleading videos splice together clips from different “Shark Tank” episodes in order to make it appear that Cuban had endorsed the product being sold. This includes editing video of a well-known $30 million offer by Cuban to buy dating app Coffee Meets Bagel in order to promote an entirely different product, fabricating endorsements that would drive sales through TikTok’s affiliate program.
The four videos identified by NewsGuard together amassed 26.2 million views and 604,300 likes. The ease with which these manipulations can be produced suggests that many more may be circulating on the platform.
Gumming up the works: Neuro Gum, a chewable product sold as a supposed aid for mental clarity that was featured on “Shark Tank” in April 2020, has been deceptively promoted in two viral videos identified by NewsGuard.
On April 19, 2025, TikTok user @s.umc posted a video promoting Neuro Gum. In the video, which garnered 9.6 million views and 269,100 likes as of May 13, Cuban says, “If I offered you $30 million for the company, would you take it?” The video then cuts to footage showing Neuro Gum’s founder Kent Yoshimura dramatically declining the offer. The video, captioned, “#1 Biggest Fumble in Shark Tank History….,” linked to Neuro Gum in the TikTok Shop.
In the actual “Shark Tank” episode, available on the show’s YouTube channel, Cuban never made such an offer to Neuro Gum, and the “sharks” are seen wearing different outfits than in the TikTok clip. While the company did receive preliminary offers from two of the “sharks” — O’Leary and Herjavec — the panel expressed concerns about the company’s valuation, and Neuro Gum left the stage without securing a deal. The clip of Yoshimura declining the offer was taken from Yoshimura’s actual appearance, rejecting a much smaller offer from a different panelist, Herjavec.
The clip of Cuban offering $30 million was instead taken from a January 2015 episode during which Cuban offered the money to a different company, the dating app Coffee Meets Bagel.
Watch the side-by-side clips here:
On May 7, 2025, TikTok user @coupens provided an affiliate link for Neuro Gum in a video supposedly showing Cuban on comedian Andrew Schulz’s podcast “Flagrant.” Schulz asked Cuban in the TikTok video posted by @coupens, “Is there anything that you made insane money on [from ‘Shark Tank’]?” The video then cuts away from Cuban, whose voice states, “You all heard of Neuro Gum?” The video garnered 2.2 million views and 20,700 likes as of May 13.
In the “Flagrant” episode, Cuban actually named Dude Wipes, a flushable wet wipe for men, as an investment that made him “insane money.” The words “Neuro Gum” appear to have been digitally inserted into the clip when Cuban was referring to “Dude Wipes.”
Watch the side-by-side clips here:
Smells fishy: Using similar manipulations, TikTok accounts are deceptively editing “Shark Tank” clips to create endorsements of BoomBoom, an energizing nasal inhaler that appeared on the show in October 2018.
On April 15, 2025, TikTok user @magicslusher promoted BoomBoom in a video that linked to the product on TikTok Shop. The video spliced together clips from BoomBoom’s “Shark Tank” episode and the episode in which Cuban made the $30 million offer to Coffee Meets Bagel described above. In the TikTok video, Cuban appears to offer $30 million to buy BoomBoom. The video then cuts to BoomBoom’s founder John Pinto on “Shark Tank,” who says, “Unfortunately, we can’t give, I can’t give up that.” The video received 3.8 million views and 58,600 likes as of May 13.
As with Neuro Gum, the “sharks” concluded the company was overvalued, and BoomBoom left the show without a deal. Explaining his justification for not making an offer, Cuban said, “Your net margins are too low.” The clip of Pinto declining an offer was in response to a much smaller offer, from Herjavec.
Watch the side-by-side clips here:
On April 15, 2025, TikTok user @a1motifs promoted BoomBoom in a video appearing to show Kevin Hart interviewing Mark Cuban on NBC’s “Hart to Heart.” In the manipulated TikTok version, Hart asked Cuban, “What do you feel is the biggest miss from ‘Shark Tank?’” Cuban responded, “To me, the one that got away personally was BoomBoom.” The video received 10.6 million views and 255,900 likes.
In the actual “Hart to Heart” episode, Cuban names beach game Spikeball — not BoomBoom — as his biggest regret. The TikTok account inserted an audio clip of Cuban saying “BoomBoom” to replace the word “Spikeball” and stitched in real footage from BoomBoom’s “Shark Tank” episode to help advance the false storyline.
Watch the side-by-side clips here:
Asked for comment on the deceptive videos, Cuban told NewsGuard in an email: “It’s messed up. I spend too much time reporting this stuff to the [Federal Trade Commission.] I hope they get busted.”
Follow the money: While it’s unclear how much money these accounts made from the doctored videos, given the millions of views each video received, the profits could be substantial.
NewsGuard confirmed through another account registered with TikTok’s affiliate program that the commission offered for Neuro Gum to a video creator with an affiliate link was $4.50 per sale, while the commission for BoomBoom was $4.99 per sale, as of May 13, 2025. Based on those rates, if one tenth of one percent of viewers purchased the products from the affiliate links, the TikTok accounts would have collectively made $124,956.
In addition to the accounts profiting from the videos, TikTok itself gets a share. The platform says it takes a six percent commission fee on all U.S. sales.
TikTok spokesperson Glenn Kuper told NewsGuard in a May 2025 emailed statement that the platform deleted the videos flagged by NewsGuard for violating TikTok's policies. He pointed to the platform's Community Guidelines, which state that it does not allow content that "falsely shows public figures in certain contexts. This includes being bullied, making an endorsement, or being endorsed."
Neuro Gum, BoomBoom, and the TikTok accounts that posted the deceptive videos — @s.umc, @coupens, @magicslusher, and @a1motifs — did not respond to NewsGuard’s direct messages and emails requesting comment.
Update: This story was updated on May 16, 2025, to include comment from TikTok spokesperson Glenn Kuper.
For Reality Check Members: Dive deeper with this report from our archives, available only to premium members: AI-generated TikTok content farms push political misinformation at scale.
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