Shark Tank co-host and entrepreneur Kevin O’Leary declared on Monday he would never invest in New York ever again, pointing to a judge ordering Donald Trump to pay $350 million-plus last week as his last straw.

“I’m not different than any other investor. I’m shocked at this. I can’t even understand or fathom the decision at all. There’s no rationale for it,” O’Leary told Neil Cavuto on Fox Business.

In his New York fraud case, Trump was ordered by Judge Arthur Engoron to pay more than $350 million, and the former president was also barred from doing business in New York for three years. Trump was accused of fraud through past valuations of his properties that were inflated and used to get more beneficial agreements in a civil lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James.

O’Leary called Trump’s actions a victimless crime and said other companies are now going to be even more fearful to conduct business in New York, which the Canadian-born O’Leary called a “loser state.”

“It doesn’t matter what the governor says, New York was already a loser state. Like California’s a loser state. There are many loser states because of policy, high taxes, uncompetitive regulation, it was already on the top of the list of being a loser state. I would never invest in New York now, and I’m not the only person saying that,” he said.

O’Leary, long a vocal critic of New York’s policies for business, described running into massive amounts of red tape while trying to set up a “high end data center” in New York and he’s now abandoning the state for “winner states,” like the Oklahoma, North Dakota, and West Virginia.

“The fine people of New York should ask themselves, why are we such a loser state? How are we going attract business?” O’Leary said. “It’s not just the existing businesses that are fleeing out to Texas and Florida. What about new money like what I’m talking about?”

The investor added that if there was any chance of his new venture being in New York, the Trump ruling ended that potential.

“Not a chance I would put that in New York,” he said. “Zero probability. Never!”

Watch above via Fox Business.

The post Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary Declares to Fox He’ll ‘Never Invest’ in NY After Trump Ruling: ‘Was Already a Loser State’ first appeared on Mediaite.

from Mediaite https://ift.tt/vI16X2z