Wall Street breathed a sigh of relief Tuesday as hopes for de-escalation in the Middle East sent tech shares climbing. Investors, weary from weeks of war jitters, suddenly remembered they prefer spreadsheets over shelling.
The hostilities had been dragging on Big Tech like an unwanted software update, leaving traders unsure if the sell-off was pure geopolitics or just the usual love-hate affair with trillion-dollar companies.
Now, with cooler heads possibly prevailing, the sector perked up faster than a laptop after a reboot.
Amazon made its own splash, announcing an $11.57 billion deal to buy satellite operator Globalstar. The move positions the e-commerce giant to launch thousands of its own satellites and roll out internet service, directly taking on SpaceX’s Starlink. Because nothing says “friendly competition” like spending billions to beam Wi-Fi from space.
Oracle led software stocks higher, with shares jumping another 7% after expanding a power deal with Bloom Energy. Apparently, even AI needs reliable electricity—preferably the kind that doesn’t come with dramatic blackouts.
Yet the weekend brought a darker subplot to the AI world. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s San Francisco home faced two unsettling incidents: a Molotov cocktail tossed at the gate on Friday, followed by an apparent shooting attempt on Sunday. No one was injured, and authorities made arrests.
Altman responded in a blog post, calling for de-escalation in the heated rhetoric surrounding artificial intelligence. When your biggest worry shifts from model training to actual training exercises on your front gate, perhaps it’s time to lower the volume on doomsday debates.
The attacks added an extra layer of tension to an industry already navigating hype, regulation, and sky-high valuations. Meanwhile, markets chose to focus on the positive: fewer missiles abroad, more satellites overhead, and software stocks refusing to stay down.
In the end, Wall Street proved once again it can shrug off drama—unless, of course, the next Molotov comes with quarterly earnings attached.
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