Oracle‘s stock jumped 7% Friday after the cloud provider joined a group of investors slated to lead TikTok‘s U.S. operations.
In a memo to employees Thursday, CEO Shou Zi Chew said the social media company’s U.S. division will be run by a joint venture that includes Oracle, Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi-based MGX. The deal is expected to close on Jan. 22.
The agreement prevents the popular social platform from getting banned after President Joe Biden signed a law requiring a divestiture of the company’s U.S. unit due to national security concerns.
President Donald Trump extended the deadline for a deal on multiple occasions and signed an executive order in September that approved a potential plan for China-based ByteDance to divest.
Oracle will be tasked with auditing and validating that TikTok follows “agreed upon National Security Terms,” according to the memo.
China has not publicly confirmed the investment deal, but reports in Chinese state media suggest that the deal will go through, CNBC’s Eunice Yoon said. State-run media reported comments from a pro-Beijing professor, who said the deal was in-line with the country’s laws and is “not a sale of the algorithm.
The company’s cloud-based computing centers will also house sensitive U.S. data.
In a note to clients on Friday, Evercore ISI called the news a “nice win” for the cloud company with upside potential.
“We continue to believe the recent pullback represents an interesting entry point with investors that can take a 6-12 month view,” analysts wrote.
The deal comes at the end of what has been a chaotic 2025 for the cloud provider and a massive pullback in shares in recent months over concerns about its AI infrastructure spending.
Earlier this week, shares slumped on a report that talks over a $10 billion datacenter deal with Blue Owl Capital had reached a standstill. That exacerbated concerns over the massive — and potentially risky — funding plans behind the artificial intelligence data center buildout.
Oracle shares are up 8% this year and have pulled back more than 20% over the last month.
Oracle one month stock chart.
