Oracle Corporation’s (NYSE:ORCL) shares jumped more than 5% in premarket trading on Friday as investors cheered news of a potential U.S. TikTok transaction and fresh fundraising chatter at OpenAI.
Reports showed that ByteDance agreed to sell more than 80% of TikTok’s U.S. operations to a consortium that includes Oracle, Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi-based MGX, a move aimed at satisfying U.S. national security demands and avoiding a ban of the popular short-video app.
Under the accord, Oracle and partners will own the majority of the newly formed TikTok US entity, with a closing targeted for late January.
"This would secure TikTok as a key customer for OCI, and could drive meaningful upside for non-AI part of business via durable, higher margin workloads," Mizuho analyst Siti Panigrahi said in a note.
The rebound also coincided with The Information reporting that OpenAI, the artificial-intelligence developer backed by Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), is in early discussions to raise up to $100 billion at an estimated $750 billion valuation, underscoring continued appetite for AI investment.
Oracle’s shares had slumped earlier this month on concerns about hefty infrastructure spending tied to a multibillion-dollar cloud partnership with OpenAI.
