Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Meta spent a record $88 billion on capex last quarter

Big Tech companies including Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Meta continue to spend big on capital expenditures to furnish their AI goals — a strategy that, judging by their earnings last quarter, seems to be a paying off.

Combined, those four companies spent $88 billion on purchases of property and equipment last quarter — a record, according to FactSet — much of which went toward AI projects like data centers.

In case you’re trying to wrap your brain around just how much money that is, it’s roughly the equivalent of the market cap of Starbucks.

In one quarter.

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Rani Molla1h

Intel pops on reported Apple chip deal

Intel soared more than 14% on a Wall Street Journal report saying the company had reached a preliminary agreement with Apple to manufacture chips for the iPhone maker. Intel, already on a tear as of late, jumped earlier this week when Bloomberg first reported the two companies were in talks. It’s still unclear which chips Intel would manufacture for Apple, which has been facing supply constraints for its iPhone as well other products.

In any case, the deal could help Apple ease supply constraints that have hit some of its products and reduce its reliance on longtime partner TSMC, as it aims to bring more chip manufacturing stateside.

Apple, Intel Have Reached Preliminary Chip-Making Agreement

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella (R) greets OpenAI CEO Sam Altman during the OpenAI DevDay event

Emails show Microsoft wasn’t impressed by OpenAI’s early work, but wanted to keep it from Amazon

OpenAI wanted further Azure computing discounts, but Microsoft didn’t think it was on the verge of a breakthrough.

Jon Keegan4h

INTO ORBIT?

...or back to Earth?

Rani Molla

SpaceX Launches Tesla Roadster Into Space

Rani Molla7h

Wedbush’s Dan Ives raises Apple price target to $400 on $15 billion AI services opportunity

Apple may not have a frontier AI model or a fully functional AI assistant, but that won’t stop the company from throwing its weight around in the “AI revolution,” according to Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives. That’s enough for Ives to raise his price target for Apple shares to $400 from $350.

Underpinning that jump is what Ives sees as a $15 billion annual revenue opportunity for Apple in AI services from monetizing other companies’ models by distributing them to its 2.5 billion iOS users. Ives estimates that in the coming years, roughly 20% of the world’s population will access AI through an Apple device, calling it the “consumer hub of AI.”

That new era, Ives expects, will officially kick off at Apple’s developer conference in June, where he expects Apple to “finally unveil its AI strategy.”

Rani Molla5/7/26

Tesla’s Model Y just cleared a new federal safety bar

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced today that Tesla Model Ys manufactured after November 12 were the first to pass the agency’s new advanced driver assistance system tests, which are now part of the New Car Assessment Program. According to NHTSA, Tesla tested the 2026 Model Y and submitted the test results to the organization for review.

“By successfully passing these new tests, the 2026 Tesla Model Y demonstrates the lifesaving potential of driver assistance technologies and sets a high bar for the industry,” NHTSA Administrator Jonathan Morrison wrote in the press release. “We hope to see many more manufacturers develop vehicles that can meet these requirements.”

The new tests include:

Pedestrian automatic emergency braking
Lane-keeping assistance
Blind spot warning
Blind spot intervention

The milestone offers Tesla highly coveted regulatory validation, as it seeks to spur usage of its Full Self-Driving (Supervised) tech.

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