AI bet failed: Microsoft fell harder than during the pandemic
30 January 11:56
Microsoft’s market capitalization fell by $360 billion in a single day — the company’s shares fell 10% after the publication of its financial report. This was the worst daily drop in Microsoft’s stock since the 2020 pandemic. This was reported by the Financial Times, according to "Komersant Ukrainian".
AI infrastructure proved too expensive
The key trigger for the sell-off was a sharp increase in capital expenditures. In the last three months of 2025 alone, Microsoft spent $37.5 billion on building and expanding data centers — a 66% year-on-year increase.
Although the company exceeded earnings expectations, the growth rate of its cloud business was weaker than forecast. Wall Street is increasingly skeptical that the huge investments in computing power for AI will pay off quickly.
Concentration risks: dependence on OpenAI
Investors are particularly concerned about Microsoft’s close ties to OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT. It is estimated that 45% of Microsoft’s future cloud contracts, worth a total of $625 billion, will come from OpenAI.
In addition, the market is discussing a possible new round of $40 billion in funding for OpenAI involving Nvidia, Microsoft, and Amazon.
This reinforces fears of so-called “circular financing” — when tech giants invest in a startup so that it spends money on their own cloud services and chips.
The market is moving towards “tough selection”
Analysts point out that the period when AI automatically boosted the shares of all tech companies is over. It is noteworthy that against the backdrop of Microsoft’s decline, Meta’s shares rose 10.4% thanks to a strong quarterly report.
“We have moved into a phase of evaluating business models. The market is now rigorously filtering out who is really making money from AI and who is just spending billions,” said Venu Krishna, a strategist at Barclays.
The US macro context adds pressure
Microsoft’s sharp decline came amid cooling economic expectations in the US. The GDP growth forecast for the fourth quarter of 2025 was lowered from 5.4% to 4.2% due to an increase in the trade deficit in November.
Despite President Donald Trump’s claims of “the hottest economy in the world,” financial markets are increasingly cautious about the outlook, especially in the high-cost technology sector.
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