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Microsoft Corp. MSFT, +0.54% shares rose slightly Friday after multiple media reports that it is in talks to buy TikTok because President Donald Trump is set to order the dance app’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, to divest its ownership of TikTok’s U.S. operations.
Shares of Microsoft climbed about $2 after the news was first reported by Bloomberg, but closed up $1.11, or 0.5%, at $205.01 as the Wall Street Journal and others followed with similar reports, citing sources familiar with the negotiations.
Wedbush Securities said in a note to clients Friday that TikTok — which has denied passing on information to the Chinese government but has increasingly been targeted as a security threat by U.S. officials — is valued at $50 billion in the private markets. Microsoft buying TikTok, which lets hundreds of millions of users worldwide post short videos, would be “a big bet on the consumer social media space, which the company has stayed away from over the last decade,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives wrote.
Microsoft stock is up 0.1% after hours, and has increased 30% this year. In contrast, the S&P 500 Index SPX, +0.76% is up about 0.4% so far.
