The Squiz  

As the Australian news cycle is dominated by stories of managing the ongoing cost of living crisis, some big American companies talked about some big bucks yesterday. Tech giants Microsoft (the most valuable company in the world) and Google (the fourth most valuable) delivered their financial updates yesterday. And Tesla (the world’s most valuable automotive company) is talking about its financial affairs for a different reason. It’s good to stay across these things, so let’s get into it. 

Give me the low down…

Microsoft is riding a high after it recently overtook Apple with a market valuation of over $3 trillion. That’s down to its foray into artificial intelligence with a massive investment in OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT. Its purchase of gaming company Activision also helped the company rake in a total of US$62 billion of revenue in the last 3 months of 2023 – up 18% year-over-year. Market researcher Jeremy Goldman says “while peers like Alphabet (Google’s parent company) and Meta navigate the AI landscape, Microsoft is firmly establishing itself as a frontrunner in the AI race”. Speaking of… Alphabet/Google pulled in $86.3 billion in revenue for the quarter, up 13%. That’s a record in the company’s 26-year history, but it wasn’t rewarded with its share price falling 6.5% overnight. For one thing, investors aren’t convinced it’s far enough advanced with AI compared to its peers. 

And what’s happening with Tesla?

Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company has hit a few road bumps this year, with its share price dropping 26% since the start of January… To put a dollar figure on that, it means the company’s value is down $300 billion, and it’s down to “notably lower” growth projections. Experts say that’s down to the demand for electric vehicles falling as silent as their engines. And it might be why Tesla shareholders are a bit happy about a US judge rejecting Musk’s $84 billion pay package… Musk had testified he’d use the money for “a way to get humanity to Mars”, but Delaware Court of Chancery Judge Kathaleen McCormick said it was “an unfathomable sum”. In response, Musk took to his social platform X to advise people to “never incorporate your company in the state of Delaware”.