Hyperscaler earnings are driven by ownership markups of private AI companies

>The hyperscalers’ earnings growth this quarter was boosted by an unusually large contribution from equity stakes in private companies...which accounted for nearly 60% of those two companies’ income in Q1 and 34% of the total $155 billion in income this quarter across the five largest hyperscalers.

>This represents the group’s largest collective share of earnings attributable to “other income” in at least a decade. Of this $53 billion in “other income,” $49 billion was explicitly due to equity stakes in private companies.