On January 27, 2025, the technology sector experienced a significant downturn, with AI-related stocks leading the decline. NVIDIA saw its stock price plummet by 16.9%, closing at $118.42, erasing approximately $593 billion in market value. Similarly, Broadcom, Microsoft, and cloud computing and search titan Alphabet faced substantial losses, with their stocks dropping by 17.3% and 2.5%, respectively
The AI pioneer OpenAI under Sam Altman closed its long-awaited funding round, announcing that it raised $6.6 billion at a $157 billion post-money valuation. OpenAI’s $157 billion valuation underscores its AI dominance, yet losses loom large. Will Thrive Capital, Microsoft, and Nvidia’s backing help steer the ship through the challenges ahead? Stay tuned for more.
Elon Musk's AI venture, xAI, has raised $6 billion to fuel its ambitious plans to compete with ChatGPT and other AI technologies. The funding, which values xAI at $18 billion, is aimed at bringing the startup’s first products to market, developing advanced infrastructure, and accelerating research and development. Founded last summer, xAI has already launched Grok, which is available exclusively to X Premium subscribers on X (formerly known as Twitter).
A recent NYT article highlights the significant influence of seven major technology companies, dubbed the "Magnificent Seven," on the recent surge of the S&P 500 index. These companies – Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla – have collectively seen their value soar by nearly 117% since the S&P 500's low point in October 2022 propelled the index to new heights.
Earlier this week, Swedish FinTech unicorn Klarna announced an austerity program and the layoff of 10% of its workforce. San Francisco-based Bolt Financial had to follow this path and lay off around a third of its workforce, or around 250 employees, to reach profitability with the money available. The Bolt layoffs came just months after investors valued FinTech at $11 billion. PayPal and other FinTechs also announced layoffs and hiring freezes. Evidently, the FinTech sector switches into crisis mode.