Combined bond issuance from Big Tech companies, including their special-purpose vehicles, is projected to surge to a record $320 billion this year, roughly 70% of total Treasury bond issuance.
Big Tech’s Debt Load Is Exploding
According to data shared by The Kobeissi Letter on X, the $320 billion figure would mark a 60% year-over-year increase of roughly $120 billion and represent nearly nine times the level seen in 2024.
“We believe the AI debt boom is now driving Treasury yields higher,” the market commentator added.
It said that Big Tech is emerging as “a serious competitor to the U.S. government in the long-term debt market,” increasingly drawing from the same pool of buyers as investors demand higher compensation to hold long-term debt.
AI companies have already issued roughly $220 billion in debt this year, according to BNP Paribas data, while Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG), Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ:META) and Oracle Corp. (NYSE:ORCL) alone issued about $194 billion in bonds through early July, up 79% from all of 2025, according to Reuters and LSEG data.
Not Everyone Sees It As a Problem
Jai Kedia, a research fellow at the Cato Institute, told Benzinga last month that the AI buildout “should not be worrying,” calling it “healthy competition to government bonds from increasingly valuable corporate bonds.”
He instead pointed to federal debt, which surpassed $40 trillion in August, as the bigger risk, along with tariffs and other policies he said are fueling inflation.
Treasury Yields are Under Pressure
The 10-year Treasury yield rose as high as 4.80% last week, its highest level since January 2025, while the 30-year yield climbed to 5.31% in August, its highest since June 2007.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has responded by doubling the size of the department’s long-end liquidity-support buybacks to at least $4 billion per operation starting Sept. 9.
Market Snapshot
The iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (NASDAQ:TLT) is the primary fund tracking the long end of the Treasury yield curve, including the 30-year benchmark bond. The fund has fallen 5.54% year-to-date and 8.39% over the past year.
Price Action: The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSE:SPY), which tracks the S&P 500, closed 0.39% lower on Friday at $770.19 and fell 0.1% in after-hours trading. The Invesco QQQ Trust ETF (NASDAQ:QQQ), which tracks the Nasdaq-100, was up 0.18% to close at $718.96 but fell 0.2% in extended trading.
Benzinga edge rankings show the Invesco QQQ Trust ETF has a Momentum score in the 68th percentile and a positive price trend in the short, medium, and long term.
Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
Image via Shutterstock/ William Potter
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