Oracle (ORCL) stock edged up 1.5% on Tuesday after media outlets reported the software giant would be part of the US and China’s preliminary TikTok deal.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said at a press conference Monday that the two countries agreed on a framework for a TikTok deal during high-stakes trade talks in Madrid. Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are set to speak on Friday to “complete” the agreement.
A US buyer for TikTok has not been officially named. The Wall Street Journal said Tuesday, citing unnamed sources, that a consortium of investors, including Oracle, Silver Lake, and Andreessen Horowitz, would control TikTok’s US business with an 80% stake under the current framework. TikTok’s existing US users would be asked to move to a new app the company is testing, and Oracle would handle the user data on its servers in Texas.
Oracle did not respond to Yahoo Finance’s request for comment.
The stock climbed as much as 6% Tuesday before paring gains as the major stock indexes pulled back from record highs.
The tech firm’s stock first climbed on Monday, spiking as much as 5% in premarket trading when Trump initially hinted at a TikTok deal on social media.
“The big Trade Meeting in Europe between The United States of America, and China, has gone VERY WELL!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “A deal was also reached on a ‘certain’ company that young people in our Country very much wanted to save.”
Read more about Oracle’s stock moves and today’s market action
TikTok faces a US ban unless it divests its ownership to a US- or US-allied country by Dec. 16.
Politico reported in March that the White House was considering a deal from software giant Oracle to run TikTok, but that deal could leave ByteDance some control over the app, according to the Information.
Oracle already has a relationship with TikTok, and its servers have been used to store TikTok’s American user data as part of an initiative called Project Texas since 2022.
Oracle has also worked closely with the Trump administration on its push to develop AI in the US. The tech firm’s chair, Larry Ellison, joined OpenAI (OPAI.PVT) CEO Sam Altman, SoftBank Group (SFTBY) CEO Masayoshi Son, and Trump in January at the Oval Office to announce a $500 billion initiative, called Stargate, to build AI data centers in the US — though the project has faced delays.
While Oracle has emerged as a leading contender to acquire TikTok, other suitors have also expressed interest in buying the social media company, from a group of investors led by billionaire Frank McCourt Jr. to Microsoft (MSFT), Perplexity AI, and YouTuber Mr. Beast.
