This week the Mag 7 stopped arguing about last week's earnings hangover and started picking sides. Nvidia (NVDA) ripped higher on reports it is in advanced talks to buy Hugging Face for roughly $14 billion. Tesla (TSLA) spent the week warming up for a Cybercab event in Austin on Thursday. Apple (AAPL) handed the CEO chair to John Ternus. Same seven names, with fresh jobs that no longer move together.
Nvidia closed near $224, up about 7% on the week and still roughly +19% year to date. Meta Platforms (META) added about 3% to roughly $593 and is still red on the year near -9%. Apple climbed about 4% to around $325 and remains the clean YTD leader near +20%. Tesla finished near $357, up about 3% on the week with the robotaxi day still ahead, and is still about 18% underwater for 2026.
Amazon (AMZN) slipped about 2% after the FTC and 22 states sued over ad-auction pricing. Alphabet (GOOGL) eased about 1.4% and is still roughly 11% red over the past month even after a court win that blocked a forced ad-tech breakup. Microsoft (MSFT) basically flatlined near $497 while investors chewed on AI spending, a reporting restructure, and higher yields. Here is the full scoreboard through the September 2 regular close.
The Scoreboard
Prices and moves as of the September 2 regular close.
Stock | YTD | Past Month | Key Catalyst This Week |
|---|---|---|---|
AAPL | +19.9% | +5.0% | Ternus CEO day one; still YTD leader |
NVDA | +18.8% | +5.9% | Best Mag 7 week; ~$14B Hugging Face talks |
AMZN | +12.6% | -8.1% | FTC ad-auction suit; still YTD leader pack |
GOOGL | +7.0% | -10.7% | Ad-tech breakup blocked; month still ugly |
MSFT | +5.1% | +0.8% | Flat week; AI spend vs higher yields |
META | -8.9% | +0.8% | Green week; still deep YTD hole |
TSLA | -18.5% | +9.1% | Cybercab Austin event; still deep YTD hole |
Nvidia Wants the Software Layer Too
Nvidia had the cleanest Mag 7 week on the board, up about 7% to roughly $224, after Bloomberg reported the company is in advanced talks to acquire Hugging Face in a deal that could total about $14 billion, including a large employee retention package. No final agreement is locked, and the timing can still slip before ink hits paper, but the market still treated it like Jensen Huang reaching past chips into the open-model marketplace where developers actually live.
That matters because Nvidia already owns the cash register for AI training hardware, while Hugging Face is one of the main places people share, host, and ship models. Buying the bazaar would give Nvidia more control over how open models spread and more reasons for customers to stay inside its stack. The price tag looks rich if you only stare at reported revenue near the low hundreds of millions, but the strategic pitch is different: Nvidia wants more customers, not just more GPUs sold to the same five hyperscalers.
I like the ambition, and I will not pretend a reported deal is a closed deal, especially when concentration risk is real if one chip giant also owns a key open-model hub. The tape this week did not care about that essay. It paid for the story that Nvidia is still building the ecosystem, not just filling rack space.
"Nvidia is no longer just selling shovels. This week it looked ready to buy the town square where the diggers meet."
Tesla's Cybercab Day. Apple's New Boss. Amazon's Lawsuit.
Tesla (TSLA) closed near $357, up about 3% on the week and still about 18% red year to date, with Thursday's Austin event as the next proof point for the purpose-built Cybercab with no steering wheel and no pedals. Tesla already runs limited robotaxi service on Model Ys, so folding the wheel-free car into that service is the easy headline. Regulatory approval, safety scrutiny, and whether the auto business can fund the science project are the hard parts, which means a green week into the show is useful and still does not close the year-to-date hole.
Apple (AAPL) finished near $325, up about 4% on the week and still the Mag 7 YTD leader near +20%, after John Ternus took over as CEO on September 1 and Tim Cook moved to executive chairman. The first big stage is the September 9 hardware event. Ternus is a hardware guy, and the market will judge him on whether Apple can make AI feel like product rather than a lagging slide in somebody else's presentation.
Amazon (AMZN) slipped about 2% to around $255 after the FTC and 22 states sued over alleged secret surcharges in advertising auctions, with the complaint claiming more than $20 billion was extracted from advertisers over years. Amazon calls the case misguided. Ads are a huge profit engine sitting next to AWS, so a green year-to-date tape near +13% does not erase a fresh legal overhang on the cash machine.
The Rest of the Board
Meta (META) closed near $593, up about 3% on the week, and is still roughly 9% red year to date even after the settlement bounce from last week refused to fully fade. Capital spending is still huge, so legal quiet helps while cash conversion still has to prove it.
Alphabet (GOOGL) eased about 1.4% near $337 after a federal judge rejected a Justice Department push to force a sale of Google's ad exchange and ordered behavioral changes instead. Berkshire Hathaway CEO Greg Abel also talked up Alphabet as a significant AI player after Berkshire built a large stake, and none of that fixed a brutal month near -11%. The stock is still living with capex nerves and AI competition at the same time.
Microsoft (MSFT) finished near $497, basically flat on the week, with Azure growth still the pride of the group. Higher Treasury yields and massive AI capital spending keep raising the bar for what those data centers must earn, while a reporting restructure around AI and infrastructure is meant to give investors a cleaner scorecard. Flat is not failure after Nvidia stole the microphone.
Bottom Line
What separated this Mag 7 week was simple: Nvidia tried to buy more of the AI software map and the tape paid for it, Tesla walked into a robotaxi showcase with a stock that is still deep red on the year, and Apple started a new CEO era from the top of the YTD board. Amazon picked up a fresh FTC fight on ads while Meta kept grinding higher from a hole, and Alphabet and Microsoft spent the week in other people's headlines.
Watch whether the Hugging Face talks become a real deal, whether Cybercab looks like a product or a demo, and whether Amazon's ad engine can shake the lawsuit, because the Mag 7 nickname is still lazy when these are seven different stocks again.
Nvidia tried to own more than the chips, Tesla has to show the car without a wheel, and everything else is secondary this week.
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