Big Tech Issued About $220 Billion of Bonds. Alphabet and Meta Show How AI Is Warping the Credit Market

AI spending is now large enough to distort the bond market around it. Reuters reported on September 10 that Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and Oracle issued roughly $220 billion of bonds over the prior year as they funded data-center expansion. Similar credits are no longer always trading at similar spreads as repeated giant deals flood the market. Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) turn that bond-market oddity into an equity question: how much should shareholders pay for AI growth when the funding itself is becoming more expensive? Cheap borrowers can still suffer from expensive projects Alphabet Inc.