Altimeter Capital CEO Brad Gerstner said Thursday that he’s moving out of the “bomb shelter” with Nvidia and into a position of safety, expecting that the chipmaker is positioned to withstand President Donald Trump’s widespread tariffs.
“The growth and the demand for GPUs is off the charts,” he told CNBC’s “Fast Money Halftime Report,” referring to Nvidia’s graphics processing units that are powering the artificial intelligence boom. He said investors just need to listen to commentary from OpenAI, Google and Elon Musk.
President Trump announced an expansive and aggressive “reciprocal tariff” policy in a ceremony at the White House on Wednesday. The plan established a 10% baseline tariff, though many countries like China, Vietnam and Taiwan are subject to steeper rates. The announcement sent stocks tumbling on Thursday, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq down more than 5%, headed for its worst day since 2022.
The big reason Nvidia may be better positioned to withstand Trump’s tariff hikes is because semiconductors are on the list of exceptions, which Gerstner called a “wise exception” due to the importance of AI.
Nvidia’s business has exploded since the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in 2022, and annual revenue has more than doubled in each of the past two fiscal years. After a massive rally, Nvidia’s stock price has dropped by more than 20% this year and was down almost 7% on Thursday.
Gerstner is concerned about the potential of a recession due to the tariffs, but is relatively bullish on Nvidia, and said the “negative impact from tariffs will be much less than in other areas.”
He said it’s key for the U.S. to stay competitive in AI. And while the company’s chips are designed domestically, they’re manufactured in Taiwan “because they can’t be fabricated in the U.S.” Higher tariffs would punish companies like Meta and Microsoft, he said.
“We’re in a global race in AI,” Gerstner said. “We can’t hamper our ability to win that race.”
Figma co-founder and CEO Dylan Field said Thursday that artificial intelligence doesn’t pose a serious threat to the future of the design software company, which is on the verge of debuting on the public markets.
“We’re in this moment where you might, if you’re singularity-pilled, go, ‘Hey, superintelligence is coming and it’ll be able to do things that no human can do,” Field told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “I have a harder time believing that we’re going to approach that really quickly right now, but that doesn’t mean it’s out of the picture.”
Figma is slated to begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “FIG” on Thursday. Last week, the company estimated that it would price shares in the range of $25 to $28, and on Wednesday it priced above that range at $33 a share.
The offering values Figma, which ranked No. 45 on this year’s CNBC Disruptor 50 list, at $19.3 billion.
The company was supposed to be acquired by Adobe for $20 billion, but the deal was scrapped in December 2023 after regulators objected.
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So-called “superintelligence,” a type of artificial intelligence that would be more powerful than the human brain, has recently become a growing focus among technology companies.
Field told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin that the company’s “complex” graphics engine and other aspects of its technology make it difficult to be replaced by superintelligence.
“I think that’s not stuff that you can learn from looking at code and sort of various places on the internet,” Field said. “It’s not part of the pre-training data mix. I believe that doing that at scale — it’s quite difficult.”
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been especially vocal about the potential for superintelligence, declaring in a Wednesday memo that the technology will serve as a tool for “individual empowerment” over automation and efficiency.
Meta recently created a lab to pursue superintelligence, and Zuckerberg has poured billions of dollars into building a roster of top AI talent.
— CNBC’s Jordan Novet contributed reporting to this story.
Roblox stock soared 16% Thursday after the company reported second-quarter revenue that beat expectations amid strong user growth.
The gaming platform saw $1.44 billion in net bookings, up 51% over the year prior. Analysts polled by LSEG expected $1.24 billion in net bookings for the quarter.
User and engagement numbers were also strong for the company, with daily active users at 111.8 million, up 41% year-over-year, and hours engaged at 27.4 billion, up 58% year-over-year.
StreetAccount expected 106 million DAUs.
“Our year on year growth this quarter is a reflection of our strategic investments in infrastructure and performance, discovery, and the virtual economy, which continue to create fertile conditions for creators to thrive as part of a healthy, interconnected ecosystem,” said CEO David Baszucki in a release.
Baszucki added that the company is looking to grab 10% of the global gaming content market.
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Roblox raised its booking guidance for the third quarter and now expects between $1.59 billion and $1.64 billion. FactSet expected $1.42 billion in third-quarter bookings.
The gaming platform did report a net loss of $279.38 million, a loss of 41 cents per share. Roblox had a net loss of $205.88 million, a loss of 32 cents per share, in the same quarter a year ago.
The platform rolled out new age verification tools two weeks ago, as the broader gaming industry and app stores have faced regulatory pressure to improve safety for young users and limit access to certain types of content.
Roblox Chief Safety Officer Matt Kaufman said the age-estimation tools will help keep younger users from accessing “something that should be limited to an older audience — 13 and over.”
Kaufman said having more mature content opportunities will help teens and adults stay on Roblox instead of moving to other platforms.
META CEO Mark Zuckerberg (L) and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
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Shares of Meta soared 12% and Microsoft popped 5% on Thursday, after the companies reported better-than-expected earnings that beat on top and bottom lines.
Microsoft topped the $4 trillion market cap benchmark with the move, joining Nvidia in the club.
Both Meta and Microsoft have been investing heavily in artificial intelligence infrastructure in recent years, and the companies said they expect to continue to shell out billions in capital expenditures.
Meta said capital expenditures will range between $66 billion and $72 billion for the full year, raising the low end of the company’s previous estimate of between $64 billion and $72 billion. Microsoft sees over $30 billion in fiscal first quarter capital expenditures and assets acquired through finance leases, while analysts surveyed by Visible Alpha had expected $24.23 billion.
Analysts at Citi said the companies’ increased capital expenditures will likely be a boon for chipmakers. Microsoft makes up roughly 8% of Advanced Micro Devices‘ sales, while Meta makes up about 2% of Broadcom’s sales, the analysts said.
“We believe AVGO and AMD will be the primary beneficiaries of Microsoft’s and Meta’s increased capex,” they wrote in a Thursday note.
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In addition to increased capital expenditures, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been on an AI hiring blitz, highlighted by a $14.3 billion investment into the data-labeling startup Scale AI and the launch of its new Meta Superintelligence Labs unit.
Morgan Stanley analysts said they “applaud the effort” and are pleased with the state of Meta’s core business, but they remain a little wary of Zuckerberg’s AI spending.
“On one hand, the core business is so strong that it’s paying for all the new AI talent and infra several times over, but on the other hand the cavalier nature by which Zuckerberg is throwing money around is a bit unnerving, especially if things don’t come together as planned with the new superintelligence team,” the analysts wrote.
Barclays analysts said Microsoft’s generative AI scaling is still playing out, but the strong demand for its data center infrastructure continues to point to ongoing momentum for the quarters ahead. They maintained their overweight rating on the stock.
“With its strong Q4 FY25 results, MSFT confirmed its unique status in the software space and will likely continue to be one of the core holdings by investors,” they wrote in a note Wednesday.
Microsoft reported $76.44 billion in revenue for its fiscal fourth quarter, up 18% year over year. The company said net income increased to $27.23 billion, or $3.65 per share, from $22.04 billion a year ago.
Meta reported $47.52 billion in revenue for its second quarter, up 22% year over year. Its net income rose 36% year over year to $18.34 billion, or $7.14 per share.