Big Tech’s “Magnificent Seven” heads into earnings season reeling from Trump turbulence

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 days ago Since President Trump s Jan 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 area value has plunged by trillion or as of April The financial damage was even more severe a limited days after Trump s April 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 the bulk punitive tariffs and an exemption from majority of of the fees on electronics coming in from China has provided chosen relief but Trump has made it clear the reprieve may be short-lived That has left the specter of Trump s ongoing exchange 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 mentioned Besides the upheaval triggered by Trump s tariffs his administration is also in the midst of trying to prove regulators assertions 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 discovered 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 notable 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 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 deal 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 analysis after already revealing that its first-quarter car sales dropped by 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 authorities agencies After Musk discusses his strategy for reversing a decrease in Tesla s territory 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 Amazon on April Meta and Microsoft on April and Apple on May Nvidia which operates on a fiscal year ending in January is scheduled to wrap things up on May with the release of its quarterly results