Shares of Oracle Corporation climbed nearly 8% in mid-day trading on Friday, as investors reacted positively to reports of progress on a potential U.S. deal involving TikTok, alongside renewed fundraising discussions at OpenAI.
According to reports, ByteDance has 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. The proposed transaction is designed to address U.S. national security concerns and avert a potential ban on the popular short-form video platform.
Under the proposed structure, Oracle and its partners would hold a majority stake in a newly created TikTok U.S. entity, with the deal expected to close by late January.
Analysts highlighted the strategic benefits for Oracle’s cloud business. Mizuho noted that securing TikTok as a long-term customer could meaningfully boost Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), particularly through stable, high-margin workloads outside of artificial intelligence.
Evercore ISI analysts added that the agreement could lock in a cloud customer worth more than $1 billion annually, while demonstrating OCI’s ability to support one of the world’s most data-intensive platforms. They also pointed out that the deal reinforces the view that OCI’s growth extends beyond its partnership with OpenAI, while offering Oracle potential equity upside and deeper exposure to advanced AI systems. The transaction further validates OCI as a trusted platform for sensitive data and sovereign government use.
Oracle’s rally also coincided with a report from The Information stating that OpenAI, which is backed by Microsoft, is in early-stage talks to raise up to $100 billion at a valuation of approximately $750 billion. The report underscored continued strong investor appetite for artificial intelligence-related investments.
Earlier this month, Oracle shares had come under pressure amid concerns over heavy infrastructure spending tied to its multibillion-dollar cloud partnership with OpenAI, making Friday’s rebound particularly notable.
