Oracle stock jumps as US and China agree to preliminary TikTok deal

Oracle (ORCL) stock rose nearly 4% on Tuesday as the US and China reached a preliminary TikTok deal during trade talks in Madrid.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said at a press conference Monday that the two countries have agreed on a framework for a deal. Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are set to speak on Friday to “complete” the agreement.

While a US buyer of TikTok has not been named, Oracle has emerged as a top contender to acquire the social media app. CBS News reported Tuesday that Oracle will be among a consortium of companies that are part of the preliminary US-China deal to enable TikTok to continue operations.

Meanwhile, CNBC reported that the two countries’ agreement would allow Oracle to continue its current cloud deal with TikTok. Oracle’s servers are used to store TikTok’s American user data, part of an initiative called Project Texas, launched by TikTok around 2022.

Shares in the tech firm had spiked as much as 5% in premarket trading on Monday 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 Sept. 17, though Trump has said he may extend the deadline again.

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 did not respond to Yahoo Finance’s request for comment Monday.

Oracle has 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., Microsoft (MSFT), YouTuber Mr. Beast, and Perplexity AI.

Oracle stock is up 81% for the year. The tech firm’s shares soared last week after the company projected its cloud revenue would soar to $144 billion by its 2030 fiscal year — likely driven by a $300 billion deal with OpenAI — with Wall Street cheering the results.