The so-called Magnificent Seven tech stocks fell sharply Monday, sending the Nasdaq down more than 4% in midday trading.
Apple had dropped more than 5% as of midday, while Google parent Alphabet, Meta, chipmaker Nvidia and Meta were all down more than 4%, and Microsoft and Amazon were off more than 3%.
Tesla was leading the drop, as the stock sunk more than 12% in midday trading. Tesla shares have been on a steady decline amid blowback over CEO Elon Musk’s political activities and work to slash government spending through the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency. Protestors against Musk have turned their attention to vandalism of Tesla cars, showrooms and facilities, with some protests even turning violent.
The stock’s wipeout has caused Musk’s net worth to plunge by more than $150 billion so far this year.
Investors are worried about the effect of President Donald Trump’s economic policies, especially the uncertainty around tariffs and growing fears of a possible recession, which Trump didn’t rule out when asked on Sunday. Last week was the stock market’s worst in two years and the Nasdaq fell into correction on Thursday, falling more than 10% from its latest peak in December.
Trump’s trade war is perceived to be a big threat for the Big Tech stocks, particularly giants like Tesla and Apple. China is Tesla’s second largest market after the United States and the company owns a major assembly plant there, meanwhile Apple makes a majority of its iPhones in China. While Trump has paused much of the wide-ranging tariffs on Canada and Mexico, the China tariffs are still on as Beijing retaliates.
Looming over the U.S.-China trade riffs is fears over advancing AI capabilities coming out of China. Last week, Chinese researchers launched an early preview of Manus AI, an general AI agent able to autonomously perform tasks like planning trips and analyzing stocks. Apple was expected to unveil a similar AI-enhanced Siri in the coming months, but investors’ hopes were crushed on Friday when the company announced that it would be delaying it until next year and pulled an ad featuring the AI version of Siri.
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