Meta & Microsoft: How Two Tech Titans Outran a Sinking Mag 7Forget about the Magnificent Seven and say hello to M&M — the only two winners of the year so far.
If you blinked during the first half of 2025, you might’ve missed it: the mighty Magnificent Seven are starting to look more like a Scraggly Five. While Tesla NASDAQ:TSLA fumbled its autonomy narrative and Apple NASDAQ:AAPL spent more time designing slides for the WWDC than in keynotes, two names quietly did the thing — created shareholder value.
Meta NASDAQ:META and Microsoft NASDAQ:MSFT
Both are up more than 13% year-to-date each, sitting comfortably at the top of the gains leaderboard. For comparison: Nvidia managed just 3% (and that’s with all the AI hype), and everyone else? Down. Flat. Or just ghosted by Wall Street. The iPhone maker? How’s 20% to the downside?
Let’s break down how Meta and Microsoft dodged the selloff.
📞 Meta: Not About That Meta
Meta NASDAQ:META came into 2025 like it had something to prove. Zuck had long gone full avatar with the metaverse. But now? Now he wants to win AI — and he’s putting his money where his data is. Meta’s latest foray into AI is a $14.3 billion investment into Scale AI.
A 49% non-voting stake in the AI darling isn’t for fun — but for function. It’s a full-court press to close the Llama-size gap between Meta’s in-house models and the heavyweights like OpenAI and Anthropic.
Scale AI, already one of Meta’s biggest vendors, processes and labels the data that fuels Meta’s large language models. It was only a matter of time before Zuck decided, “Hey, let’s just own a piece of the pipeline.”
And in true tech soap opera fashion, Scale CEO Alexandr Wang last week confirmed in an internal memo he’s leaving to join Meta full-time. For those keeping score: Wang, born in 1997, became the youngest billionaire in 2021. Now, he’s headed into the belly of the Menlo Park beast.
Wall Street seems to dig that. The stock shot up when the news leaked , as investors rewarded Meta for looking less like a social media giant and more like a serious AI player — even if it still serves your aunt’s minion memes.
👾 Microsoft: The OS of Enterprise Still Runs Smooth
Meanwhile in Redmond, Satya Nadella was out here quietly running the table.
Microsoft NASDAQ:MSFT hit an all-time high of $480 on June 12, pushing its market cap to a record-breaking $3.5 trillion. For about a day or two before that, Nvidia NASDAQ:NVDA was on top — and then Microsoft did what Microsoft always does: calmly pressed Ctrl+Alt+Delete on its competition and reclaimed its spot as Earth’s most valuable company .
How did that happen? Certainly not overnight.
Azure continues to gobble cloud market share, Microsoft 365 is still the gold standard for digital productivity, and Teams — love it or hate it — is now basically corporate law.
But don’t sleep on its AI game. Microsoft isn’t just throwing money at OpenAI, it’s embedding AI into everything it touches. Outlook, Excel, Word — all getting their Copilot upgrades. Want to finish that quarterly report faster? Let AI do it. Want it rewritten in pirate-speak? AI’s got you.
Microsoft isn’t just building tools. It’s establishing an infrastructure for the new AI economy. And traders see that. They understand that while Nvidia sells the shovels, Microsoft owns the mine.
👩🏻💻 Why the Rest of the Mag 7 Didn’t Make the Cut
Quick vibe check:
Apple NASDAQ:AAPL Still chasing the AI breakthrough. No one talks about the Vision Pro headset anymore, and the annual WWDC event wasn’t anything special. The stock is down 20% on the year.
Tesla NASDAQ:TSLA Robotaxis are coming ( maybe even this week ). But earnings pressure and margin squeeze made investors wish for more than tweets and timelines. The shares are underwater by 14% YTD.
Amazon NASDAQ:AMZN E-commerce growth hit cruise control, and its AI presence still feels more like an R&D lab than a monetized machine. The stock is staring at a 3.7% loss, largely thanks to Amazon getting slapped in the face from Trump’s tariffs .
Alphabet NASDAQ:GOOGL Search is still dominant, but Gemini’s bumpy launch and questionable performance has traders waiting for Google to actually ship something great, and not just strip the results from the iconic blue links . The stock is down 8%.
Nvidia NASDAQ:NVDA Yes, still the king of chips. And yes, it’s still delivering. But with valuation stretched like Lululemons in a CrossFit class and export bans weighing heavy , it’s getting harder to maintain the pace.
🍻 Trading Lesson: Leadership Rotates
If you’re a trader who’s been glued to Nvidia’s every tick or still buying dips on Apple because it “has to come back,” let this be your mid-year reminder: the market doesn’t care what used to lead.
Leadership rotates. Fundamentals shift. And sometimes, the best trade is the one hiding behind less hype and more function.
Case in point: While Apple’s been trying to find a catalyst, Meta just found a whole new business partner. While Nvidia’s been spinning plates on export rules, Microsoft’s just printing money off the back of Office subscriptions and Azure servers.
👀 What Happens Next?
With the second half of the year approaching, all eyes are on:
Meta’s AI ambitions — can the Scale deal accelerate model performance fast enough to close the gap with rivals?
Microsoft’s cloud dominance — can Azure continue its double-digit growth without hitting the regulatory radar?
Earnings, earnings, earnings — it’s almost the season again! Earnings reports kick off in about a month and things will get cracking.
Whatever happens, don’t bet the farm on what used to work. Watch the rotation. Track the strategy shifts. And for the love of charts — keep one eye on the Earnings Calendar .
💬 Final Thought
If Meta and Microsoft can shine while their peers flounder, what does that say about the real winners in this new AI economy? Maybe it’s not about who builds the flashiest model — but who actually knows how to monetize it. What’s your thought?
