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Lord Sugar: poised for an Apprentice USA takeover bid?
Lord Sugar: poised for an Apprentice USA takeover bid? Photograph: Rex Features
Lord Sugar: poised for an Apprentice USA takeover bid? Photograph: Rex Features

Lord Sugar: I'd like to replace Donald Trump on The Apprentice USA

This article is more than 8 years old

British peer expresses interest after NBC officially fires New York mogul over his comments about Mexican immigrants

His Twitter nemesis Piers Morgan tried – and failed – to conquer America. Now it seems Lord Sugar wants to have a go at making it over the Atlantic.

The 68-year-old said he “would like the challenge” of hosting the US version of his hit BBC reality show The Apprentice.

The NBC programme is looking for a new mogul after Donald Trump quit to launch his presidential bid in June.

NBC subsequently cut all ties with Trump – who also produced the Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants – when he made a string of comments in which he characterised Mexican immigrants as drug dealers and rapists.

Responding on Twitter to suggestions he would be the “perfect replacement”, Lord Sugar appeared to throw his hat into the ring, saying: “I would like the challenge”.

.@AndrewBloch RT:With Trump not doing The Apprentice USA anymore, @Lord_Sugar would makeperfect replacement......I would like the challenge

— Lord Sugar (@Lord_Sugar) July 1, 2015

Although he is known in the UK for his colourful language and blunt manner, the British peer may strike US viewers as relatively tame compared with his American counterpart.

Trump – who likes to refer to himself as “the Donald” – said NBC was “weak” and “foolish” for firing him and threatened to sue the broadcaster for axing Miss USA and Miss Universe.

There is little love lost between the two business moguls.

In 2012, they were embroiled in a Twitter spat after Trump called Lord Sugar “dopey” and told him: “Without my show you’d be nothing”.

In return, Sugar told him to “shut up” and said the American had “a charisma bypass”.

The Apprentice launched in the US in 2004, a year before the first series of the BBC version. As ratings tailed off the format was changed to admit celebrity contestants only. The latest series of Celebrity Apprentice aired in January and February this year.

According to some reports in the US, NBC may consider replacing Trump with an ethnic minority host. Others have speculated the job may go to his daughter Ivanka.

It is not the first time Lord Sugar has revealed his ambitions to make it in America.

The Amstrad founder once claimed he could have been as influential as Microsoft boss Bill Gates if he had crossed the Atlantic earlier in his career, saying: “People said that had I moved to America in the mid-80s I’d have gone on to rule the world.”

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