Catenaa, Thursday, May 29, 2025- Big tech stocks in the US gained on Thursday following a US trade court ruling that the vast majority of Trump’s global tariffs are illegal.
Tesla shares were up by 1.2% by 1.30 in the afternoon amid news of CEO Elon Musk’s exit from the Trump administration, and Nvidia shares by 3.7% as AI chipmaker reported earnings that showed demand for its AI chips has stayed strong despite a hit from a recent ban on exports of its H20 chips to China.
Apple traded 0.1% lower while Google dipped 0.3%. Amazon was up by 1%, and Meta and Microsoft were all up less than 1%.
Trump on April 2 announced a broad array of steep so-called reciprocal tariffs on top US trading partners, a development that shaved over $2 trillion from the Magnificent Seven companies’ market capitalizations, cumulatively, in the immediate aftermath.
Though the plan was temporarily paused, the US enacted a 10% “baseline” tariff on all countries and tariffs as high as 145% on Chinese imports.
Later, the government issued an exemption for consumer technology imports such as Apple’s products, and a temporary trade truce between the US and China brought down the broader levy on imports from the country, boosting tech stocks.
Then last week, President Trump said Apple must pay at least a 25% tariff unless its iPhones are made in the US, sending its shares plunging. Apple has pledged $500 billion to build out its US supply chain.
Big tech stocks have suffered from Trump’s back-and-forth trade policies. Apple stock is still down nearly 19% in 2025. Google shares are down 8.8%, and Amazon has lost 5.5%.
