‘Shark Tank’ star Kevin O’Leary says pro-Palestinian student protesters are ‘screwed’ when they apply for jobs because employers will identify them through AI

• Students protesting Israel’s war on Gaza may be ruining their career prospects, says Kevin O’Leary.
• The “Shark Tank” host said employers could identify applicants who joined in the protests using AI.
• “I can’t believe the stuff I find in background checks now. These people are screwed,” he said.

“Shark Tank” host and investor Kevin O’Leary says pro-Palestinian student protesters will be “screwed” when they start job hunting.

This, O’Leary says, is because employers can now use AI technology to screen applicants and filter out those who have taken part in protests. Advancements in technology have made it much easier to identify people on camera, the businessman added.

“Here’s your resume with a picture of you burning a flag. See that one. That goes in this pile over here, cause I can get the same person’s talent in this pile that’s not burning anything,” O’Leary told Fox News’ The Five on Wednesday.

“There’s plenty of consequences for all those people. Even an image that far away, AI can generate who they are by the way the body moves. I can’t believe the stuff I find in background checks now. These people are screwed,” he said.

O’Leary told CNN in an interview on the same day that protesters could still be identified even if they tried to mask their identity by donning a mask. This is because they can be identified via retinal scanning, he claimed.

“This is what’s happening with AI. So if you’re burning down something, or taking a flag down, or fighting with police, I’m sorry, you’re trashing your personal brand,” O’Leary told CNN’s Laura Coates.

Representatives for O’Leary did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI sent outside regular business hours.

O’Leary isn’t the only business executive who has weighed in on the pro-Palestinian student protests taking place at various campuses, such as Columbia University and UCLA.

Darren Woods, the CEO of Exxon Mobil, told CNBC in an interview last month that the oil giant “wouldn’t be interested” in hiring students from universities that have been embroiled in pro-Palestinian protests.

“Harassment and intimidation, there’s no place for that, frankly at those universities, and certainly no place for that at a company like Exxon Mobil,” Woods told the outlet. “If that action or those protests reflect the values of the campuses where they’re doing it, we wouldn’t be interested in recruiting students from those campuses.”

Comments from executives like O’Leary and Woods underscore the damage students might be inflicting on their own careers through their political activism.

In October, law firm Winston & Strawn said it revoked a job offer for a New York University law student who publicly condemned Israel for Hamas’ terrorist attacks. The announcement came on October 10, just three days after Hamas had attacked Israel.