
Q3 is the first quarter that $AMZN, $GOOGL, $META and $ORCL all had negative free cash flow at the same time. In 2024 they mostly paid for the AI buildout with their own cash. In 2025 they added debt. This year Alphabet, Meta and Oracle started selling stock. And free cash flow doesn’t show everything they have agreed to spend. Many of the data centers they plan to use in the coming years aren’t being bought at all. Other companies are borrowing to build them and will rent them out, and that rent doesn’t show up in free cash flow until it starts being paid. Depending on how the lease is set up some of that rent never shows up there at all. $MSFT is the only one still positive, so they can keep paying for AI with the cash their business makes. But they rent data centers the same way, so that positive FCF doesn’t show all the rent they have signed for either. Which one would you rather own while they pay for all this?