Montana legislators approved a bill on Friday that would ban TikTok from being offered in the state in a 54-43 vote. The bill, SB 419, now goes to Montana Republican Governor Greg Gianforte for approval.
TikTok, which is owned by China’s ByteDance, is likely to take action to prevent the bill from becoming law. If implemented, it would be the first statewide ban of its kind.
Beyond Montana, federal lawmakers have for months been pushing an act that would ban TikTok across the country if ByteDance won’t sell its stake in the viral video app. That threat presents severe potential challenges to TokTok, and the company has invested millions of dollars into combating the effort.
The Montana bill cited likely Chinese surveillance and the potential theft of state intellectual property as some of the impetus behind the ban. Should a law be enacted, mobile app store providers like Apple and Google would be required to disable Tiktok downloads from within Montana, and TikTok would be prohibited from offering the platform to state residents.
The ban would take effect on Jan. 1, 2024.
“TikTok’s stealing of information and data from users and its ability to share that data with the Chinese Communist Party unacceptably infringes on Montana’s right to privacy,” the bill reads. Montana is one of the least-populated states in the U.S., with just over 1 million residents as of the 2020 census.
Gianforte knows the tech industry well. Prior to public office, he ran RightNow Technologies, a software company he founded in 1997. Oracle acquired RightNow in 2012 for $1.5 billion. As of 2018, Gianforte had an estimated net worth of over $189 million, according to OpenSecrets.org.
In 2020, Oracle agreed to provide backend technology to TikTok as part of an arrangement to keep the app, at the time, from being banned by the U.S. government. Oracle is currently the cloud hosting service for all of TikTok usage in the U.S.
Customers in Montana won’t be fined if they fail to abide by the ban or evade it. But companies, including TikTok, face a $10,000 fine per violation if they’re found to have skirted the ban.
State Sen. Shelley Vance, a Republican, sponsored the bill. Vance did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
TikTok said it opposes the bill, adding that there’s no clear path for the Montana government to enforce it or punish violators.
“The bill’s champions have admitted that they have no feasible plan for operationalizing this attempt to censor American voices and that the bill’s constitutionality will be decided by the courts,” TikTok said in a statement. “We will continue to fight for TikTok users and creators in Montana whose livelihoods and First Amendment rights are threatened by this egregious government overreach.”
Shares of Intuit popped about 9% on Friday, a day after the company reported quarterly results that beat analysts’ estimates and issued rosy guidance for the full year.
Intuit, which is best known for its TurboTax and QuickBooks software, said revenue in the fiscal third quarter increased 15% to $7.8 billion. Net income rose 18% to $2.82 billion, or $10.02 per share, from $2.39 billion, or $8.42 per share, a year earlier.
“This is the fastest organic growth that we have had in over a decade,” Intuit CEO Sasan Goodarzi told CNBC’s “Closing Bell: Overtime” on Thursday. “It’s really incredible growth across the platform.”
For its full fiscal year, Intuit said it expects to report revenue of $18.72 billion to $18.76 billion, up from the range of $18.16 billion to $18.35 billion it shared last quarter. Analysts were expecting $18.35 billion, according to LSEG.
“We’re redefining what’s possible with [artificial intelligence] by becoming a one-stop shop of AI-agents and AI-enabled human experts to fuel the success of consumers and small and mid-market businesses,” Goodarzi said in a release Thursday.
Read more CNBC tech news
Goldman Sachs analysts reiterated their buy rating on the stock and raised their price target to $860 from $750 on Thursday. The analysts said Intuit’s execution across its core growth pillars is “reinforcing confidence” in its growth profile over the long term.
The company’s AI roadmap, which includes the introduction of AI agents, will add additional upside, the analysts added.
“In our view, Intuit stands out as a rare asset straddling both consumer and business ecosystems, all while supplemented by AI-prioritization,” the Goldman Sachs analysts wrote in a note.
Analysts at Deutsche Bank also reiterated their buy rating on the stock and raised their price target to $815 from $750.
They said the company’s results were “reassuring” after a rocky two years and that they feel more confident about its ability to grow the consumer business.
“Longer term, we continue to believe Intuit presents a unique investment opportunity and we see its platform approach powering accelerated innovation with leverage, thus enabling sustained mid-teens or better EPS growth,” the analysts wrote in a Friday note.
FILE PHOTO: Apple CEO Tim Cook escorts U.S. President Donald Trump as he tours Apple’s Mac Pro manufacturing plant with in Austin, Texas, U.S., November 20, 2019.
Last week, Trump said he “had a little problem with Tim Cook,” and on Friday, he threatened to slap a 25% tariff on iPhones in a social media post.
Trump is upset with Apple’s plan to source the majority of iPhones sold in the U.S. from its factory partners in India, instead of China. Cook officially confirmed this plan earlier this month during earnings.
Trump wants Apple to build iPhones for the U.S. market in the U.S. and has continued to pressure the company and Cook.
“I have long ago informed Tim Cook of Apple that I expect their iPhone’s that will be sold in the United States of America will be manufactured and built in the United States, not India, or anyplace else,” Trump posted on Truth Social on Friday.
Analysts said it would probably make more sense for Apple to eat the cost rather than move production stateside.
“In terms of profitability, it’s way better for Apple to take the hit of a 25% tariff on iPhones sold in the US market than to move iPhone assembly lines back to US,” wrote Apple supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo on X.
UBS analyst David Vogt said that the potential 25% tariffs were a “jarring headline,” but that they would only be a “modest headwind” to Apple’s earnings, dropping annual earnings by 51 cents per share, versus a prior expectation of 34 cents per share under the current tariff landscape.
Experts have long held that a U.S.-made iPhone is impossible at worst and highly expensive at best.
Analysts have said that made in U.S.A. iPhones would be much more expensive, CNBC previously reported, with some estimates ranging between $1,500 to $3,500 to buy one at retail. Labor costs would certainly rise.
But it would also be logistically complicated.
Read more CNBC tech news
Supply chains and factories take years to build out, including installing equipment and staffing up. Parts that Apple imported to the United States for assembly might be subject to tariffs as well.
Apple started manufacturing iPhones in India in 2017 but it was only in recent years that the region was capable of building Apple’s latest devices.
“We believe the concept of Apple producing iPhones in the US is a fairy tale that is not feasible,” wrote Wedbush analyst Dan Ives in a note on Friday.
Other analysts were wary about predicting how Trump’s threat ultimately plays out. Apple might be able to strike a deal with the administration — despite the eroding relationship — or challenge the tariffs in court.
For now, most of Apple’s most important products are exempt from tariffs after Trump gave phones and computers a tariff waiver — even from China — in April, but Apple doesn’t know how the Trump administration’s tariffs will ultimately play out beyond June.
“We’re skeptical,” that the 25% tariff will materialize, wrote Wells Fargo analyst Aaron Rakers.
He wrote that Apple could try to preserve its roughly 41% gross margin on iPhones by raising prices in the U.S. by between $100 or $300 per phone.
It’s unclear how Trump intends to target Apple’s India-made iPhones. Rakers wrote that the administration could put specific tariffs on phone imports from India.
Apple’s operations in India continue to expand.
Foxconn, which assembles iPhones for Apple, is building a new $1.5 billion factory in India that could do some iPhone production, the Financial Times reported Thursday.
Palantir co-founder and CEO Alex Karp speaks during the Hill & Valley Forum at the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center Auditorium in Washington, D.C., on April 30, 2025.
The stock transactions occurred on Tuesday and Wednesday between $125.26 and $127.70 per share. Following the stock sales, Karp owned about 6.43 million shares of Palantir stock, worth about $787 million based on Thursday’s closing price.
The sales were connected to a series of automatic share sales to cover required tax withholding obligations tied to vesting restricted stock units, according to filings.
Other top executives at the Denver-based company also unloaded stock.
Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar sold about $21 million worth of Palantir stock, while co-founder and president Stephen Cohen dumped about $43.5 million in shares.
Read more CNBC tech news
Palantir shares have notched fresh highs in recent weeks as the company leapt above Salesforce in market value and into the top 10 most valuable U.S. tech firms.
The digital analytics company has benefited from bets on AI and a surge in government contracts as companies prioritize streamlining and President Donald Trump targets a federal overhaul with the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency.
The stock has outperformed its tech peers since the start of 2025, surging nearly 62%, but investors are paying a high multiple on shares.
In its earnings report earlier this month, the company lifted its full-year guidance due to AI adoption, but shares fell on international growth concerns.
“You don’t have to buy our shares,” Karp told CNBC as shares slumped. “We’re happy. We’re going to partner with the world’s best people and we’re going to dominate. You can be along for the ride or you don’t have to be.”