Big Tech Lost $2.7T in June, and the Bill Is Still Coming
Big Tech’s AI spending used to look like a moat. In June, it behaved like a mortgage. The Magnificent Seven, along with Broadcom and Oracle, shed ~$2.7T in market value as investors moved on from pricing in AI’s promise to pricing in its cost. The carte blanche expired, and now Wall Street wants receipts.
- Microsoft led June’s AI losses at $558B — as hyperscaler free cash flow projections fell sharply, squeezing the cushion for buybacks, dividends, and acquisitions.
- Adding to the squeeze, Congress debated the Ratepayer Protection Act Wednesday — requiring data centers to fund grid upgrades rather than passing costs to utility customers.
Behind the meter: Follow the costs, and they’ll lead to electricity. To gain an edge, Amazon is banking on nuclear power to keep its data center expansion cheap and dependable. In contrast, Google is growing fastest among hyperscalers with a skip-the-grid-queue approach. It’s acquiring renewables developer Intersect Power and co-locating Texas data centers next to solar and wind projects. Whoever controls the current, ultimately controls the future.
