The U.S. and China have a "framework for a TikTok deal," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Monday, ahead of another deadline for the TikTok ban. Meta Platforms stock and shares of other social media competitors rose Monday.
TikTok remains available for Americans under a temporary reprieve from a 2024 law that bans the short-video app unless its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, divests ownership. President Donald Trump has delayed enforcement of the law on three separate occasions, most recently in June.
Bessent said at a press conference Monday that the deal will be confirmed by Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Friday. But the U.S. did not release any specific details of the agreement.
"We're not going to talk about the commercial terms of the deal," Bessent said, according to the Wall Street Journal. "It's between two private parties, but the commercial terms have been agreed upon,"
Trump, meanwhile, wrote on the Truth Social platform he owns that the U.S. reached a deal "on a 'certain' company that young people in our country very much wanted to save. They will be very happy! I will be speaking to President Xi on Friday."
The reported deal comes as China separately announced a pair of antitrust investigations into U.S. chipmakers.
Meta Stock Higher After TikTok-Ban News
Social media stocks that could benefit from the loss of a fast-growing competitor were largely higher on Monday. That includes Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta Platforms.
Meta stock is ahead a fraction at 760 in recent action on the stock market today. Google parent and YouTube owner Alphabet is up 3.4% at 249. Google stock is getting a boost from the strong performance of its Gemini AI app over the weekend.
Shares of Snapchat parent Snap gained 2.3% at 7.51. Reddit and Pinterest stock are each higher as well.
Investors may have already been counting on TikTok sticking around, following the enforcement delays and public support for the app from Trump. But social media competitors could also benefit if a new owner is perceived as less able to innovate than ByteDance.
"The nature of the buyer is critical for investors," Morningstar analyst Malik Ahmed Khan wrote in a research note in June. "A strategic acquirer with existing advertising technology or e-commerce strengths (Amazon or AppLovin, for example) could intensify competition, turbocharging TikTok's U.S. growth and potentially muting upside for incumbents like Meta and YouTube. Conversely, a financial buyer or one lacking deep ad-tech expertise may lead to a more significant digital ad wallet share shift toward these established players."
Another big question is whether China would allow a new owner to take control of TikTok's highly valuable content-recommendation algorithm.
Oracle Stock Gains After TikTok Reports
Those details are not clear yet. Trump was reportedly briefed in April on a plan dubbed "TikTok America." The proposal would bring new American investors in and dilute ByteDance's ownership of TikTok in the U.S. to below 20%. Oracle, meanwhile, would secure TikTok's U.S. user data. Oracle already provides cloud services for ByteDance, including its U.S. TikTok operations.
Oracle stock is ahead 3.5% at 302.95 in recent action Monday. Shares soared last week after Oracle gave a bullish forecast for its cloud business.
