The future of TikTok is cloudy, but Jim Cramer's advice for investors isn't

While the future of TikTok is murky, one thing remains certain. Jim Cramer said Friday investors should buy Meta Platforms . The Facebook and Instagram owner would be the biggest beneficiary of a U.S. ban on TikTok that would start Sunday unless Chinese parent ByteDance divests itself of the social media app. The Supreme Court on Friday sided with President Joe Biden by upholding the law -- the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act -- that he signed back in April. Ahead of the high court ruling, there were reports that Biden would leave the enforcement of the law to President-elect Donald Trump . A spokesperson for the outgoing president later confirmed it. Trump, who takes office Monday, has expressed his desire to keep TikTok available in the U.S., given its 170 million users which include many small businesses and content creators. While ByteDance has so far refused to sell the app, Cramer said Trump will delay any ban. "Trump will come up with some sort of deal, as long as they can keep the data [of users] from the Chinese government." TikTok has long said it does not share user data with the Chinese. Whatever happens over the weekend, Jim is firm that Meta is a strong buy. "This is so wrong," Jim said on the stock's lack of movement on the TikTok news, although portfolio director Jeff Marks said the ban could be priced into Meta by now. Meta shares were modestly lower earlier Friday before swinging higher. Even if TikTok stays open in the U.S., Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg will "crack this code," Jim said Friday during the Investing Club Morning Meeting . Analysts are also upbeat on Meta as "one of the leaders in the AI race," pointing to improvements in ad performance, the expected increase in AI investments, along with a new functionality that allows advertisers to integrate customer relationship management systems into Meta's ad platform as factors that could lead to a 25% upside on Meta stock over the next 12 months. If the ban goes into effect? Meta is the "largest fundamental winner," Morgan Stanley in a note to clients Wednesday, citing the Facebook and Instagram parent's leading user base of 5 billion monthly active users as of January 2025. Even if Meta can capture half of TikTok's U.S. user time, it could add upwards of 5% to 9% to the company's 2026 earnings per share (EPS), or $19 billion in incremental ad revenue, according to Wells Fargo. Further supporting the case are results from TD Cowen's fourth-quarter U.S. consumer survey that found 29% of users would switch over their viewing time to Meta's short-form video product Reels in the event of a TikTok shutdown, slightly higher than the 27% from last year's results. "A TikTok ban would be a huge windfall for Instagram, but the [TikTok] platform's fate is anybody's guess," said Marks. To be sure, Trump is reportedly considering issuing an executive order to delay the national ban, as first reported by the Washington Post . The potential executive order would suspend enforcement of the law for 60 to 90 days, extending the timeline for a potential sale of the app. There are a couple of possible TikTok buyers, including billionaire investor Frank McCourt who teamed up with Shark Tank's Kevin O'Leary to campaign a bid to buy the app with the goal of "placing people and data empowerment at the center of the platform's design and purpose," according to website Project Liberty. American TikTok users are already looking at alternatives. As of Thursday morning, the leading free app by downloads on both Apple and Android is Chinese social media app Xiaohongshu, referred to as "Rednote" for short. Lifestyle app and ByteDance-owned Lemon8 is the second most popular app mention of the week. But the second winner behind Meta is Alphabet 's YouTube Shorts, says TD Cowen. The firm's survey found 23% of respondents would move to YouTube Shorts, slightly higher than the prior year's 22%. Morgan Stanley estimates engagement flow into Shorts could add somewhere between $400 million to $750 million in 2026 ad revenue. This engagement shift should only bolster Shorts' already strong viewership, which boasts more than 70 billion daily views and over two billion monthly signed-in users. (Jim Cramer's Charitable Trust is long META, GOOGL. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust's portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . 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