The Nasdaq suffered its steepest drop since April, tumbling 3.6% on Friday as tech megacaps — Amazon, Nvidia, and Tesla — collectively shed $770 billion in market value. The sell-off followed President Donald Trump’s threat to impose 100% tariffs on Chinese goods and new export controls on “critical software.”
The S&P 500 also fell 2.7%, extending losses after Trump’s announcement late Friday that the new tariffs would take effect on Nov. 1.
Nvidia, which recently became the first company to hit a $4.5 trillion market cap, lost nearly $229 billion in value. The chipmaker’s GPUs power OpenAI’s AI infrastructure, used by cloud partners like Microsoft, which also saw its market cap decline by $85 billion.
Amazon’s shares erased their 2025 gains, plunging 5% and wiping out $121 billion in value. CEO Andy Jassy said earlier this year that tariff impacts on retail prices remain “impossible to know.”
Tesla dropped 5%, cutting $71 billion off its valuation, just days after unveiling lower-cost vehicles. Alphabet and Meta fell 2% and 4%, respectively.
The broader pullback marks a sharp reversal for tech stocks, which had rallied for months on AI-driven optimism and massive infrastructure investments.
