Tech stocks today: Apple earnings beat, memory crunch, and the Musk Vs. Altman fight continues

Apple (AAPL) stock climbed roughly 5% on Friday, after the company posted better-than-anticipated results on Thursday on the back of strong iPhone revenue and continued growth out of China.

For the second quarter, Apple reported earnings per share (EPS) of $2.01 on revenue of $111.2 billion. Analysts were anticipating EPS of $1.96 and revenue of $109.66 billion, according to Bloomberg analyst consensus estimates.

Apple’s iPhone revenue grew 20% for the second consecutive quarter to $56.99 billion, while China revenue ticked in at $20.49 billion, ahead of expectations of $18.9 billion.

That, coupled with strong Services sales, seemed to give investors more confidence in Apple’s outlook. And with the company’s WWDC event scheduled for June 8, we should get more insight into Apple’s AI strategy after a series of fits and starts that have been an overhang for the smartphone maker.

Throw the expected foldable iPhone and planned CEO transition from Tim Cook to John Ternus in September into the mix, and things are certainly looking interesting for Apple at the moment.

Silicon Valley’s favorite AI tool is making it harder to get Macs, and Apple (AAPL) CEO Tim Cook says it could take the company some time to catch up with demand.

AI developers and enthusiasts have been snatching up Mac minis and Mac Studios to run the AI agent platform OpenClaw, thanks to their relative affordability and ease of use. That’s made it difficult for some customers to get their hands on the compact, screenless desktop systems.

“The Mac Mini and the Mac Studio, both of these are amazing platforms for AI and agentic tools, and the customer recognition of that is happening faster than what we had predicted. And so we saw higher-than-expected demand,” Cook said during the company’s Q2 earnings call.

“We think, looking forward, that the Mac mini and the Mac Studio may take several months to reach supply-demand balance,” he added.

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Nvidia (NVDA) stock tumbled more than 4% on Thursday as other chipmakers gained.

Investors may be weighing rising competition for Nvidia, which has so far been the dominant play in the AI infrastructure space.

In its earnings call on Wednesday, Amazon (AMZN) noted its in-house chips business is booming, while Alphabet’s Google (GOOG, GOOGL) said it plans to sell its custom Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) to select customers who will install the chips in their own data centers.

Amazon’s and Google’s in-house chips are different than the ones Nvidia offers, and the AI chip heavy has largely dismissed any fears that other tech giants will erode its lead in the space, saying that its chips offer greater flexibility for AI developers.

Amazon and Alphabet are also big buyers of Nvidia’s AI infrastructure hardware.

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Apple (AAPL) reported its second quarter earnings on Thursday, topping analysts’ estimates on the top and bottom lines on strong iPhone sales.

Apple stock rose roughly 1% on the news.

For the quarter, Apple saw earnings per share (EPS) of $2.01 on revenue of $111.2 billion. Analysts were anticipating EPS of $1.96 and revenue of $109.66 billion, according to Bloomberg analyst consensus estimates.

That’s up from the EPS of $1.65 and $95.35 billion the company saw in the same quarter last year.

Apple’s iPhone revenue came in at $56.99 billion, just ahead of Wall Street’s projections. This marks the second consecutive quarter of more than 20% revenue growth in the segment.

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Elon Musk took the stand for a second day in his trial with OpenAI on Thursday, facing cross-examination from the AI firm’s lawyer.

A Reuters report from inside the courtroom painted a picture of a tense series of exchanges between Musk and OpenAI’s counsel, with a couple of key headlines emerging.

Most notably, Musk saying under oath that he, “didn’t read the fine print, just the headline” regarding OpenAI’s move from a non-profit to a for-profit entity overseen by a non-profit.

Understandable in that OpenAI’s corporate structure remains unique and, in some ways, still inscrutable. But bringing a lawsuit is a big step to take in order to gain an understanding of the situation.

The second key headline to emerge was Musk saying that his AI startup, xAI, has used OpenAI to train its own models, saying that it is, “standard practice to use other AIs to validate your AI.”

Read the full story from Reuters here.

The great AI flippening is fast approaching: Anthropic looks set to overtake OpenAI’s valuation.

According to a Bloomberg report late Wednesday, Anthropic is planning another fundraising round that would value the company at $900 billion, making it the more valuable of the two major AI labs that have defined the current boom for the first time.

OpenAI last raised capital at a valuation of $852 billion.

As Bloomberg noted, Anthropic has raised new money from Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) and Amazon (AMZN) in recent weeks, both at a valuation of $350 billion.

Both companies, which committed $10 billion and $5 billion in new money, respectively, retained an option to increase their investment in the startup later.

Google parent Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) on Wednesday said that it plans to sell its custom Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) to select customers who will install the chips in their own data centers.

The move is a change from Google’s prior strategy, which saw it rent out TPU capacity to customers from its own data centers — and is yet another strike at AI chip king Nvidia (NVDA).

The announcement, during the company’s Q1 earnings call, comes a week after Alphabet announced two new TPUs: its TPU 8t for AI training and TPU 8i for inferencing.

“As TPU demand grows from AI labs, capital markets firms, and high-performance computing applications, we’ll begin to deliver TPUs to a select group of customers in their own data centers in a hardware configuration to expand our addressable market opportunity,” Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said during the company’s first quarter earnings call.

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Meta Platforms (META) is set to report first quarter earnings after the market close on Wednesday, with investor focus likely to center on the company’s massive AI investments and recent staff cuts aimed at reshaping the organization for the AI age.

The company is expected to report adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $8.15 on revenue of $55.5 billion, according to Bloomberg estimates. In January, the company guided to first quarter revenue of $53.5 billion-$56.5 billion.

Meta stock is up about 2% this year, against a 6% gain for the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC).

In the first quarter last year, Meta reported EPS of $6.43 on revenue of $42.3 billion. In that report, the company said it expected total expenses in 2025 to reach $113 billion to $118 billion, with capital expenditures forecast at $64 billion to $72 billion.

By the end of the year, Meta’s realized expenses hit $117.7 billion, and its capital expenditures tallied $72.2 billion. In January, the company said it expected 2026 expenses to come in between $162 billion and $169 billion and its capital expenditures to reach $115 billion and $135 billion.

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Google parent Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) will report its first quarter results on Wednesday, with the company set to offer key updates on its Gemini model, Google Cloud revenue, and its investment plans as investors see the company as one of the big AI winners this year.

Alphabet stock has climbed roughly 30% over the past six months, beating out Amazon (AMZN), up 13%, and Microsoft (MSFT), which is off about 20%.

Much of that is thanks to the success of Google’s cloud platform and Gemini artificial intelligence models. That’s helped the company’s cloud revenue accelerate over the last few quarters, topping $17.66 billion in Q4, and it doesn’t look like it’s slowing down anytime soon.

Google Cloud revenue is projected to be $18.4 billion. That would amount to a 50% year-over-year increase.

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Microsoft (MSFT) will report its third quarter results after the bell on Wednesday as Wall Street looks for signs that the company can keep up with AI demand and steady its position in the artificial intelligence race.

Microsoft’s stock has plunged in recent months on concerns about its Azure and AI growth. In its last quarter, Microsoft reported 38% growth in its Azure business but said it would have reached 40% if not for capacity constraints.

This concern, as well as questions about Copilot adoption, risks to Microsoft’s enterprise software business, and its relationship with OpenAI, has hung over the business in recent months, with its stock down over 20% in the last six months and serving as a laggard among its “Magnificent Seven” peers.

For the quarter, Microsoft is expected to report earnings per share of $4.04 on revenue of $81.46 billion, according to Bloomberg analyst consensus estimates, up from the same period last year when it saw EPS of $3.46 and revenue of $70.06 billion.

The company’s Productivity and Business Processes segment is expected to generate $34.48 billion, while the Intelligent Cloud business is expected to see $34.31 billion.

Azure revenue is expected to increase 38.24%.

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Amazon (AMZN) will report its first quarter earnings alongside rivals Google (GOOG, GOOGL), Meta (META), and Microsoft (MSFT) on Wednesday, with investors looking for more signs that the company’s massive artificial intelligence spending is paying off.

All totaled, the AI hyperscalers are expected to spend a whopping $650 billion in capital expenditures in 2026, and Amazon will account for $200 billion of that.

Despite that, Wall Street has been largely positive on Amazon, with the stock of the cloud and e-commerce giant up 13% year to date. That’s better than Google’s 12% increase, and well ahead of Microsoft, which is down 12%.

Amazon, however, is also dealing with increased shipping costs due to rising fuel prices, which could impact e-commerce revenue in the quarter.

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The years-long legal battle between Elon Musk and OpenAI (OPAI.PVT) finally goes to court on Monday.

Jury selection in the lawsuit kicks off Monday in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, with opening arguments expected to begin Tuesday.

The witness list for both sides is a who’s who of tech heavyweights, including Musk, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Depending on how the plaintiffs decide, Musk could take the witness stand as early as Tuesday.

The outcome of the case could have a significant impact on the AI industry and, if it goes Musk’s way, could derail OpenAI’s future IPO plans.

In his suit, Musk accuses Altman, OpenAI president Greg Brockman, and others of misleading him about the company’s plans to transition from a nonprofit to a for-profit business. Microsoft (MSFT), which has invested billions in OpenAI, is also named as a defendant in the case.

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Microsoft (MSFT) on Monday announced an amended long-term agreement with OpenAI (OPAI.PVT) that will see the company no longer have exclusive access to the AI startup’s intellectual property and AI models, while also altering its revenue-sharing deal with OpenAI.

The news comes ahead of Microsoft’s earnings report on Wednesday, and just six months after the two companies formalized an agreement that allowed OpenAI to transform into a for-profit business.

Under the terms of that deal, Microsoft was given exclusive access to OpenAI’s IP and models until the company achieved artificial general intelligence (AGI), or AI that’s as smart or smarter than humans. The new agreement, however, eliminates that clause, allowing OpenAI to provide its models to Microsoft’s competitors.

Microsoft’s Azure will continue to serve as OpenAI’s primary cloud platform and get access to its latest products first, but the new agreement means OpenAI can now offer all of its services through competing cloud providers, such as Amazon Web Services.

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