Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Meta, and Oracle expected to bleed cash due to AI investments

The five companies that essentially run the internet’s backend are spending so much on AI that some of them are now losing money on a free cash flow basis. Alphabet just reported its first negative free cash flow quarter since going public in 2004. Amazon isn’t far behind. Collectively, Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta, and Oracle have guided for more than $725 billion in capital expenditure for 2026. That’s a 77% increase over 2025, and the vast majority is going toward data centers, custom chips, and other AI infrastructure. The cash flow crunch is real Alphabet posted negative free cash flow of roughly $5.9 billion in Q2 2026, driven by $44.9 billion in quarterly capex alone. To put that in perspective, Alphabet hadn’t been FCF-negative in a single quarter since it IPO’d over two decades ago. Amazon’s trailing twelve-month free cash flow sits at negative $7.6 billion. Meta saw its cash generation collapse by 91% year-over-year. Oracle’s situation might be the most eyebrow-raising of the bunch: its fiscal 2026 capex hit 174% of operating cash flow, meaning it spent nearly twice as much on infrastructure as it generated from operations. Oracle’s solution? Plans to raise between $...