Meta, Alphabet In Spotlight After Trump Says TikTok Deal Likely Before April 5 Deadline: Retail’s Bullish Following Recent Sell-Off

Trump set the deadline for the ByteDance-owned company to find a non-Chinese buyer or face a potential ban in the U.S.

President Donald Trump has confirmed that a deal that would keep Chinese short-video app TikTok in the U.S. will likely be clinched by the April 5 deadline. The news could trigger moves in rival U.S. social media companies such as Meta Platforms, Inc. (META), Alphabet, Inc. (GOOGL) (GOOG) and Snap, Inc. (SNAP).

The president set the deadline for the ByteDance-owned company to find a non-Chinese buyer or face a potential ban in the U.S.

Speaking on Air Force One late Saturday, Trump said, “We have a lot of potential buyers. There's tremendous interest in Tiktok," media reports said.

 "I'd like to see Tiktok remain alive."

TikTok skirted a Jan. 19 deadline after the previous administration under former President Joe Biden called for a ban on the grounds that the platform posed a national security threat, and the Supreme Court upheld the move. 

President Trump then gave a 75-day extension to resolve the issue.

TikTok has made strong inroads in the U.S. and has become very popular, especially with young adults. Meta, with its Reels on both its flagship Facebook app and Instagram, and Alphabet’s Google-owned YouTube’s Shorts have strived to take on their Chinese rivals in its game and have found some success. 

The Chinese app has attracted considerable interest from investors. Liberty Project, founded by former Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt, and Larry Ellison’s Oracle Corp. (ORCL), with the latter touted as the top contender to run the U.S. operations of the TikTok or at least serving as its primary cloud provider.

A Reuters report said last week that private equity firm Blackstone was mulling taking a minority stake in TikTok U.S.

On Stocktwits, retail sentiment toward Communication Services Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLC) stayed ‘bullish’ (66/100), but the message volume remained ‘low.’

Much of the optimism toward the exchange-traded fund (ETF), Meta, and Alphabet, which are key constituents of the ETF, is due to the oversold levels of the stock following the recent sell-off.

The XLC ETF ended Friday’s session down 2.95% at $95.74, and it is down nearly 1% year-to-date. Meta stock has fallen about 1.5% year-to-date compared to the 18% loss for the Alphabet stock.

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