Shark Tank's O'Leary Tussles With CNBC Over $11M Loss From FTX Fallout: Here's What He Told Benzinga About His Next Move Involving An 'Army Of Lawyers'

Renowned "Shark Tank" investor Kevin O'Leary is feeling the pain from the FTX fallout to the tune of $11 million and he's not willing to accept that the money made out like Harry Houdini and disappeared. 

What To Know: Following his appearance at Benzinga's Future Of Crypto event in New York City, O'Leary stopped by CNBC's "Squawk Box" set on Thursday to talk numbers in the wake of the FTX collapse. 

"I put about $9.7 million into crypto. I think that's what I've lost, it's all at zero. I don't know because my account got scraped a couple of weeks ago," O'Leary told CNBC.

O'Leary owned some of the FTX native token FTT/USD, but he spread his exposure across more than 30 other coins including Bitcoin BTC/USD and Ethereum ETH/USD. Further, O'Leary lost a $1 million investment in FTX itself, he said: "Those are zeros too. It was not a good investment."

O'Leary noted that he was paid a little less than $15 million to be a spokesperson for FTX and he didn't get any others involved because of this. It was all his own money, he said. 

"However I feel obliged at this point to go to the end of this ... I need to find where the money went," O'Leary said. 

Why It Matters: At Benzinga's "Future Of Crypto" event on Wednesday, O'Leary told the packed crowd how he plans to find the money. 

"I have an army of lawyers, phasers on stun for now until we get where the money went," O'Leary said.

O'Leary acknowledged he's limited in what he can do without regulations in place, but that's not stopping him. 

When everything is over, "we’ll know exactly what happened ... It might take three, four, five or six years," he said. 

Check This Out: EXCLUSIVE: SBF - 'Idiot Or Fraudster?' O'Leary, Scaramucci Discuss What Happens To FTX Next

In his closing remarks on CNBC, O'Leary noted that he planned to testify at the upcoming U.S. Senate Banking Committee hearing.

The hearing titled, "Crypto Crash: Why the FTX Bubble Burst and the Harm to Consumers," is set to kick off at 10 a.m. ET on Dec. 14.

Crypto Price Action: At time of publication Thursday, Bitcoin was up 0.73% over a 24-hour period at $16,939.14 and Ethereum was up 1.59% at $1,250.56, according to Benzinga Pro.

Photo: Ontario Chamber of Commerce from Flickr.

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