Tech
20%

During President Trump’s first administration, Apple was exempted from a number of tariffs on China thanks to CEO Tim Cook’s amicable relationship with the president. This time around the iPhone maker might not be so lucky.

Morgan Stanley, in a research note this morning, rates the odds of Apple receiving a targeted tariff exemption at just 20%.

“During the first Trump administration, companies had weeks to formally respond to the USTR Section 301 tariff lists and provide feedback/reasons for specific product exemptions. This time, the Trump administration has implemented global tariffs through the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which means no formal product list was presented in advance, and there is no official process for requesting tariff exemptions. Therefore, for Apple to receive an exemption, it would have to be a company (or product, i.e. smartphone) specific exemption granted specifically by the President. At this point, we believe it is unlikely (but subject to change).”

Morgan Stanley previously said tariffs would be “calamitous” for IT hardware companies like Apple, whose stock is down 3% today after shedding more than $300 billion in market cap yesterday in its deepest drop since the early pandemic.

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Amazon closes at all-time high

Fresh off strong earnings Thursday, Amazon saw its stock price end the week at a record closing high of $244.22.

The stock is up 10% so far this year.

The e-commerce and cloud giant beat analysts’ revenue and earnings, and its massive gain was responsible for more than all of the positive return delivered by the SPDR S&P 500 ETF on Friday.

tech
Rani Molla

Google uses an AI-generated ad to sell AI search

Google is using AI video to tell consumers about its AI search tools, with a Veo 3-generated advertisement that will begin airing on TV today. In it, a cartoonish turkey uses Google’s AI Mode to plan a vacation from its farm before it’s eaten for Thanksgiving.

Like other AI ad campaigns that have opted to depict yetis or famous artworks rather than humans, Google chose a turkey as its protagonist to avoid the uncanny valley pitfall that happens when AI is used to generate human likenesses.

Google’s in-house marketing group, Google Creative Lab, developed the idea for the ad — not Google’s AI — but chose not to prominently label the ad as AI, telling The Wall Street Journal that consumers don’t actually care how the ad was made.

Google’s in-house marketing group, Google Creative Lab, developed the idea for the ad — not Google’s AI — but chose not to prominently label the ad as AI, telling The Wall Street Journal that consumers don’t actually care how the ad was made.

tech
Rani Molla

Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, and Microsoft combined spent nearly $100 billion on capex last quarter

The numbers are in and tech giants Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, and Microsoft spent a whopping $97 billion last quarter on purchases of property and equipment. That’s nearly double what it was a year earlier as AI infrastructure costs continue to balloon and show no sign of stopping. Amazon, which reported earnings and capital expenditure spending that beat analysts’ expectations yesterday, continued to lead the pack, spending more than $35 billion on capex in the quarter that ended in September.

Note that the data we’re using here is from FactSet, which strips out finance leases when calculating capital expenditures. If those expenses were included the total would be well over $100 billion last quarter.

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