Tech
Elon Musk with chainsaw
(Valerie Plesch/Getty Images)

Tesla turns positive for the year

Tesla shares surged Monday after CEO Elon Musk disclosed buying more than $1 billion worth.

Rani Molla

Tesla is finally worth more than it was at the start of the year. Tesla surged to about $423 per share in early trading after the Elon Musk Revocable Trust reported acquiring 2.57 million shares, worth more than $1 billion.

Tesla’s stock peaked last December and ended the year at $403.84, according to FactSet, as the company rode high on CEO Elon Musk’s involvement in President Trump’s election. The stock, however, fell as that relationship became somewhat of a liability and Tesla sales flagged amid consumer boycotts. Shares sank again in June and July when Musk had a very public falling out with the president.

Lately, the stock has been recovering as Tesla expands a limited version of its robotaxi business and unveiled new Megapacks last week in an effort to boost its energy storage business. Despite an expected overall vehicle sales decline this year, Tesla could have a record third quarter as would-be buyers try to get ahead of federal tax credits that will disappear at the end of September.

Investors are interpreting Musk’s latest stock purchase — his first open market purchase since February 2020 — as a vote of confidence in the stock. In order to qualify for his $1 trillion pay package, Tesla’s market cap must rise to $8.5 trillion in the next 10 years.

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Rani Molla & Jon Keegan

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.

Jon Keegan
10/31/25
Microsoft, Amazon, and Google all have cumulonimbus-sized cloud backlogs

The top cloud companies can’t keep up with the searing demand for AI computing.

Chart - Cant keep up with cloud demand
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.

Exclusive | Google’s First AI Ad Avoids the Uncanny Valley by Casting a Turkey

Exclusive | Google’s First AI Ad Avoids the Uncanny Valley by Casting a Turkey

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.

Rani Molla
Slicing the Pie
10/31/25
The best analyst questions from Apple’s earnings call

Apple even answered some of them!

The All-New Apple Ginza opens in Tokyo

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