[louwrentius]

AI is a temporary buoy for FAANG and the tech industry to keep the financial markets happy while they switch to their next source of growth:

Military contracts.

I hope people understand the irony, but to spell it out: they need to live on government money to sustain growth.

Corporate welfare while 60% of the USA population doesn't have the money to cover a 1000$ emergency.

[andsoitis]

> Military contracts. They need to live on government money to sustain growth.

Meta makes 99% of its revenue from advertising (according to the article). Google, similarly, makes most of its money from advertising.

Tesla makes money by selling cars (there's no indication the government is going to transform their fleets to Tesla vehicles; in fact, they're openly hostile to EVs).

Apply needs to rely on US government military contracts for continued growth? What?

Amazon, the company that sells toothpaste and cloud services needs to rely on US government military contracts?

Consider me not convinced by the story you tell.

[louwrentius]

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/mark-zuckerbergs-met...

[bgwalter]

Microsoft's $22 billion (wasted) IVAS was a fiasco, now they are doubling down:

https://breakingdefense.com/2025/01/army-kickstarts-possible...

Of course it won't work. These tech companies have no clue about the real world and humans.

[bgwalter]

OP is speaking about the next source of growth, not existing revenue streams.

[andsoitis]

> next source of growth

How large is the US military contract market for the kinds of products and services these companies produce?

For reference, their combined 2024 revenue was around $2 Trillion.

[jcgrillo]

Surveillance? They have an exceptionally valuable product if they package it right.

[andsoitis]

> Surveillance? They have an exceptionally valuable product if they package it right.

So valuable that it will be next main source of growth (what was claimed) for Amazon, Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Nvidia, Meta, and Tesla?

The US military budget is less than $1 trillion per annum. these companies had a combined revenue of $2 trillion. For military contracts to be THE new source of growth, the military budget would have to be how much larger?

[9rx]

> For military contracts to be THE new source of growth, the military budget would have to be how much larger?

To be fair, it wasn't suggested that the growth would be equivalent to or surpassing of past growth, just growth of some kind. The budget doesn't necessarily have to become any larger, they just need a piece of the pie.