Alphabet Cash Flow Turns Negative

Mountain ViewAlphabet’s capex jumped 114% to $51.4 billion in one quarter.

Free cash flow fell to minus $9.1 billion, and shares dropped 10% after hours.

Alphabet’s chief business officer blamed AI Mode, a chatbot interface for search, for slower search ad growth and a $1.4 billion advertising miss.

Google Cloud revenue more than doubled to $30.71 billion, with a $561 billion backlog.

Alphabet has not priced 2027 capex, and Check Capital’s Jeremy Saltsburg said a $300 billion figure could scare the market.

How each outlet framed it

Daily Maverick: reports the first negative quarterly free cash flow in Alphabet's 22 years as a public company, $9.1B, against near-breakeven expectations
Zhidx: reports Gemini 4 Carbon's launch the same day, pricing at $2/$10 per million tokens, and Cloud revenue up 103% to $30.7B