Corporate boards long tasked with fiduciary responsibilities to their shareholders are scrutinizing how Target allowed itself to become embroiled in social scandal big enough to cause a nearly $15 billion loss in market cap, "Shark Tank" star investor Kevin O'Leary told Fox News on Monday.

Since the backlash over its Pride merchandising controversy, Target's market value has fallen over $13 billion to $60.24 billion as of Monday's closing price. O'Leary, head of O'Leary Ventures, said the future is likely to bring a complete change in how corporate America approaches certain concerns like the processes that led to Target's "unprecedented" cliff-dive.

"On one hand, companies want to show their support of diversity in all the mandates that society is discussing openly," he said on "Jesse Watters Primetime." On the other hand, the job of a business -- particularly from the perspective of an investor -- and those that are retired, for example, that own the S&P 500 or own Target stock – are concerned that maybe they're losing their way in terms of what the prime objective is: your customers, your employees, and your shareholders."

"And so if you start to get too distant or too far away from the primary mandate, the market has proven itself to really, really punish you. And it's woken up all kinds of boards," O'Leary stressed.

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The Minneapolis-based big-box retailer waded into controversial waters recently as its "tuck-friendly" swimwear geared toward the transgender community led to nationwide outrage.

That fallout was compounded by a Fox News Digital investigation that found its nonprofit foundation – directed by its senior corporate treasurers – funded an entity seeking to cede United States territory including Mount Rushmore, over claims it is a symbol of White supremacy, and sought to demilitarize the armed forces due to concerns of its "violen[ce]."

O'Leary suggested much of the furor was intensified by how fast the news of Target's behavior spread on social media – adding that many corporate boards don't always take into account the power of viral word-of-mouth.

"When you can't control the message anymore through social media, which is clearly obvious, you better figure out what message you're putting out before it ever gets out there," he said.

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"We almost need a new committee on boards. We have committees for risk… compensation -- We've got compliance committees. We need a communications/media committee to advise the rest of the board who don't even have Twitter accounts or don't have Facebook or don't use LinkedIn."

O'Leary said many boards still don't understand the "risks inherent" of what they're doing in an age of instantaneous social media communication.

He pointed to Anheuser-Busch, which he noted built Bud Light to be America's top-selling beer in its category over decades, only to see the brand destroyed in "32 hours" after it partnered with transgender socialite Dylan Mulvaney.

O'Leary concluded that diversity officers will continue to be part of corporate boards, and that the issue is what they are doing with their power and their appropriations.

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"I don't think you're going to find a lot of people saying, 'oh, let's not have diversity officers'. I think that boat sailed. But what they do with their budgets now really matter and the risks they're putting the company into because of the power of uncontrolled social media is obviously measurable," he said.

"When you lose $11 billion of market cap, there're a lot of unhappy cowboys out there. They're called your investors."

He speculated that Target CEO Brian Cornell had no idea about the anti-Mount Rushmore appropriation.

Shortly before O'Leary's comments, Elon Musk publicly predicted class-action lawsuits by Target shareholders, in response to a report by conservative commentator Charlie Kirk that JPMorgan just downgraded the company's stock.

The press is having a fine old time kicking around CNN chairman Chris Licht. I’m a bit more sympathetic, since I think he’s basically taking on Mission Impossible.

But there’s a sense of glee and gloating about Licht that I don’t fully understand. His goal, when he took the job a year ago, was to restore the network’s shredded reputation and return to down-the-middle journalism. He’s made plenty of mistakes, but steering that ocean liner in a different direction is a gargantuan task.

CNN long had the problem, including the years when I worked there, that people tuned in when there was a war or impeachment or natural disaster, but the numbers dropped when things were calm.

Plenty of pundits are dunking on Licht in the wake of a deep-dive Atlantic piece that casts him as a man whose job is in jeopardy. That seems overstated, given that he just needs the approval of the man who hired him, David Zaslav, the head of Warner Brothers Discovery, which bought CNN’s parent company. Zaslav’s hiring of a loyalist as chief operating officer last week has fueled the rumors that Licht is on shaky ground, though every corporation needs a COO.

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Licht granted unusual access to author Tim Alberta because he envisioned a triumphal piece a year later. Instead, with ratings and profits way down, "Licht had lost the confidence of his own newsroom … Every move he made, big programming decisions and small tactical maneuvers alike, seemed to backfire."

Chief among these, for the guy who helped create "Morning Joe," was moving anti-Trump, anti-Republican host Don Lemon from prime time to the new morning show – only to have to fire him for being excessively opinionated and consistently clashing with his female co-hosts.

A smaller example: Abandoning the newsroom-level office of his predecessor, Jeff Zucker, and moving up to the 22nd floor – where he’s an unseen presence for most CNN staffers.

Perhaps his most frustrated complaint about critics who lean left is that pushing for more Republican guests "doesn’t make me a fascist right-winger who’s trying to steal Fox viewers."

The chairman’s constant criticism of the Zucker era – when CNN’s ratings were generated by slamming Trump and being MSNBC Lite – was not appreciated by anchors and other people hired by Zucker who think he shouldn’t have been fired.

"Licht told friends he was convinced that Zucker – whose legacy he was undermining daily with rhetorical recriminations about past damage to CNN’s brand – was retaliating by pushing hit pieces on him."

Zucker is increasingly criticizing CNN’s performance since his ouster, and his spokeswoman doesn’t deny it. "It is wholly unsurprising that Jeff Zucker, the architect of CNN’s unprecedented success, would have deep misgivings about the direction the network has taken since he left," Risa Heller told the New York Times. 

(Zucker has also told people that CNN used his failure to disclose his relationship with his top deputy, Allison Gollust, as a pretext to dump him. "I gave them a gun, and they shot me with it," he’s quoted as saying.)

Perhaps the low point of Licht’s tenure was the town hall with Donald Trump, who steamrolled moderator Kaitlan Collins despite her best efforts. Licht hoped the event would show that they could be fair to the Republican front-runner while holding him accountable. 

Instead, there was a mini-revolt within the network: "Republicans were angry at CNN. Democrats were angry at CNN. Journalists were angry at CNN. The only one who wasn’t angry, it seemed, was Trump."

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Only Zaslav knows his level of confidence in Licht, and Alberta turned down his offers to speak on background or with quote approval, saying he had to be on the record.

It’s been a rocky year, including 300 layoffs that Licht had to announce, and it’s hard to regain the confidence of the troops once you’ve lost it, but most bosses at media conglomerates aren’t loved. I still don’t quite grasp the Licht-must-go crowd, but they have a lot of friends in the press.

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Licht told the Atlantic: "I would say that for anyone who does want me to fail – what are you going for? Who would you want in this seat? You want a journalist? You want someone who has a direct line to the corporation and can make a phone call and go, ‘Hey, what the f***?’ Do you want someone who’s done the job? Who’s done a lot of the jobs? Who understands exactly what it takes to do what I’m asking?"

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That’s really the end-game question. Licht, for all his stumbles, is fighting for a return to fair journalism. If he gets shot, why would his successor, even if more charming, be a major improvement?