Meta, Microsoft earnings loom as AI-related bond cracks emerge

For months, Big Tech has been borrowing at a pace that would make a medieval king blush. Now the bond market is starting to ask uncomfortable questions. Investor demand for AI-related corporate bonds has dropped sharply, with order cover ratios falling from nearly 5x in February 2026 to below 2x by July 2026, according to analysis from Apollo Global Management. That’s a dramatic shift in appetite, and it arrives just as Meta and Microsoft prepare to report earnings this week. The debt machine meets gravity The projected AI debt pipeline for 2026 is expected to reach $570 billion, exceeding earlier estimates. Amazon’s July 2026 bond sale of $25 billion required the company to offer an additional yield of 18 to 21 basis points just to get deals done, with order coverage landing at 2.5x. Meta itself issued a record $30 billion investment-grade bond back in October 2025, the largest such offering not tied to an acquisition at the time. Microsoft, Alphabet, and Oracle have all tapped the debt markets aggressively as well. Spreads on bonds from companies like Alphabet and Meta have widened by 0.12 to 0.16 percentage points recently, even as overall investment-grade spreads have remained ...