SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — As Big Tech kicks off its quarterly earnings season this week, the industry's bellwether companies have been thrust into a cauldron of uncertainty and turmoil that they didn't anticipate when Donald Trump re-entered the White House nearly 100 days ago.
Since President Trump's Jan. 20 inauguration, Big Tech stocks have been on a see-sawing ride that has eviscerated trillions of dollars in shareholder wealth amid an onslaught of tariffs and other potentially detrimental actions.
It's the polar opposite of what Apple CEO Tim Cook, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos hoped for when they assembled behind Trump as he was sworn in.
That display of unity reflected a belief that Trump's second stint in the White House would be a refreshing change from the heavy-handed regulation of President Joe Biden’s administration while unleashing even more lucrative opportunities in artificial intelligence and deal-making.
But the Trump administration’s policies so far have vexed Big Tech’s “Magnificent Seven” companies — a group consisting of Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, Tesla, Google parent Alphabet and Facebook parent Meta Platforms. Since Trump’s inauguration, the Magnificent Seven’s combined market value has plunged by $4.2 trillion, or 24%, through Monday.
The financial damage was even more severe a few days after Trump’s April 2 unveiling of sweeping reciprocal tariffs that would have exacted a heavy toll on Big Tech's supply chains in China and other key markets around the globe. A temporary freeze on the majority of the most punitive tariffs and an exemption from most of the fees on electronics coming in from China has provided some relief, but Trump has made it clear the reprieve may be short-lived.
That has left the specter of Trump's ongoing trade war hanging over Big Tech, whose influence extends around the world.
“The mass confusion created by this constant news flow out of the White House is dizzying for the industry and investors and creating massive uncertainty and chaos for companies trying to plan their supply chain, inventory, and demand,” Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives said.
Besides the upheaval triggered by Trump's tariffs, his administration is also in the midst of trying to prove regulators' allegations that Meta has been running an illegal monopoly in social networking, and working to persuade a federal judge to break up Google after its search engine last year was found to be illegally abusing its power. Trump also has given no indication of abandoning antitrust lawsuits filed by the Biden administration that could hobble Apple and Amazon.
And Nvidia absorbed a significant setback last week when the Trump administration banned it from selling one of its popular AI chips to China, prompting the company to record a $5.5 billion charge to account for the stockpile of processors that it intended to export to that country.
Tech CEOs will get a chance to discuss the fallout from the trade war and other challenges still ahead during analyst conference calls that will be held as part of their companies’ financial reports for the January-March quarter.
The ritual will kick off Tuesday when Tesla is scheduled to release its full financial report after already revealing that its first-quarter car sales dropped by 13% from the same time last year.
The decline occurred against a backdrop of vandalism, widespread protests and calls for a consumer boycott amid a backlash to Musk’s high-profile role in the White House overseeing a cost-cutting purge of U.S. government agencies.
After Musk discusses his strategy for reversing a 47% decrease in Tesla's market value since he joined Trump in the White House, Google parent Alphabet Inc. is scheduled to announce its results on Thursday. Then four of the Magnificent Seven will get their turn next week: ; Meta and Microsoft on April 30; and Amazon and Apple on May 1.
Nvidia, which operates on a fiscal year ending in January, is scheduled to wrap things up on May 28 with the release of its quarterly results.
—-
This story corrects the date that Amazon will release its quarterly earnings to May 1.
Trader Vincent Napolitano works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Thursday, April 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Trader Michael Urkonis works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Thursday, April 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Preparations for the conclave to find a new pope accelerated Friday with the installation of the chimney out of the Sistine Chapel that will signal the election of a successor to Pope Francis.
Vatican firefighters were seen on the roof of the Sistine Chapel installing the chimney, a key moment in the preparation for the May 7 conclave.
After every two rounds of voting in the Sistine Chapel, the ballots of the cardinals are burned in a special furnace to indicate the outcome to the outside world.
If no pope is chosen, the ballots are mixed with cartridges containing potassium perchlorate, anthracene (a component of coal tar) and sulfur to produce black smoke. But if there is a winner, the burning ballots are mixed with potassium chlorate, lactose and chloroform resin to produce the white smoke.
The white smoke came out of the chimney on the fifth ballot on March 13, 2013, and Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was introduced to the world as Pope Francis a short time later from the loggia of St. Peter's Basilica. Francis, history's first Latin American pope, died April 21 at age 88.
The chimney installation took place as cardinals arrived in the Vatican for another day of pre-conclave discussions about the needs of the Catholic Church going forward and the type of pope needed to run it.
These consultations include all cardinals, including those over age 80 who are ineligible to vote in the conclave itself.
In recent days, they have heard reports about the Vatican’s dire financial situation, and have had the chance to speak individually about priorities going forward and problems they identified in Francis' pontificate.
Francis was a somewhat divisive pope, beloved by some for his focus on the poor and marginalized, but criticized by others who accused him of sowing confusion among the faithful on issues of morality and church law. These conservatives and traditionalists, who are not believed to have a majority among the 135 cardinal electors, are hoping a new pope will reassert core church teachings and act as a stabilizing figure in the Vatican bureaucracy.
Cardinal Beniamino Stella, who headed the Vatican office for clergy under Francis until his retirement in 2021, has been among the older, non-voting cardinals who has spoken during the pre-conclave sessions. According to America, the magazine of the U.S. Jesuits, Stella this week strongly criticized Francis’ reform of the Vatican bureaucracy that allowed women and lay people to head Holy See offices rather than clergy.
That reform, contained in a 2022 constitution, overhauled the Vatican bureaucracy and fulfilled a key mandate Francis received from cardinals going into the 2013 conclave that elected him pope. But some have criticized the reform, which was nine years in the works and sought to make the Holy See more service-oriented and efficient.
Francis named two laymen to head the Vatican communications operation and the economy ministry. More significantly, he named two nuns to head two of the most important Vatican offices: Sister Simona Brambilla as head of the Vatican office responsible for all the world’s Catholic religious orders, and Sister Raffaella Petrini as head of the Vatican City State administration. In that position, Petrini runs the city state and is responsible for everything from the Vatican Museums that provide the Holy See with most of its revenue, to the firefighters who installed the chimney on the Sistine Chapel Friday.
Their appointments were tangible evidence of Francis’ belief that women should have a greater decision-making role in church governance. But Stella, according to unnamed cardinals cited by America, objected to Francis’ decision to separate the power of governance in the church from the priesthood.
It is unclear what influence older cardinals such as Stella, who at age 83 will not actually cast a vote, will have on the younger cardinal electors.
A woman begs for money outside St. Peter's square at the Vatican, Friday, May 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
Firefighters place the chimney on the roof of the Sistine Chapel, where cardinals will gather to elect the new pope, at the Vatican, Friday, May 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
Firefighters place the chimney on the roof of the Sistine Chapel, where cardinals will gather to elect the new pope, at the Vatican, Friday, May 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
Firefighters place the chimney on the roof of the Sistine Chapel, where cardinals will gather to elect the new pope, at the Vatican, Friday, May 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
Firefighters place the chimney on the roof of the Sistine Chapel, where cardinals will gather to elect the new pope, at the Vatican, Friday, May 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
Firefighters place the chimney on the roof of the Sistine Chapel, where cardinals will gather to elect the new pope, at the Vatican, Friday, May 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
Firefighters place the chimney on the roof of the Sistine Chapel, where cardinals will gather to elect the new pope, at the Vatican, Friday, May 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
Firefighters place the chimney on the roof of the Sistine Chapel, where cardinals will gather to elect the new pope, at the Vatican, Friday, May 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
Firefighters place the chimney on the roof of the Sistine Chapel, where cardinals will gather to elect the new pope, at the Vatican, Friday, May 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
FILE - Visitors admire the Sistine Chapel inside the Vatican Museums on the occasion of the museum's reopening, in Rome, May 3, 2021. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino, file)
