Dell blew Wall Street’s expectations out of the water with the force of a grown man’s overly ambitious cannonball. The company’s share price soared over 35% yesterday, closing 32% up, thanks to its AI-fueled earnings beat late Thursday. And Friday’s record stock jump wasn’t an anomaly—the company’s share price has increased by over 225% this year.

Dell doesn’t care that you prefer a Mac. The tech company reported an 88% year over year increase in fiscal first-quarter sales, which rose to $43.8 billion, above analyst expectations of $35.5 billion. The company said it generated $16.1 billion in AI server revenue alone, surpassing its PC sales of $14.6 billion in the previous quarter.

Why is the PC-maker an AI player? Companies like CoreWeave and Nscale that rent computing power to run AI programs have been buying Dell’s servers at a rapid pace:

• AI sales have been so lucrative for Dell that it is raising its 2027 full fiscal year revenue estimates to $167 billion, up from $140 billion, according to Bloomberg.
• Dell predicts $60 billion of that will be from AI server sales.

Dell’s politics may have also helped

CEO Michael Dell has worked closely with President Trump since his first term. And more recently:

• Dell and his wife, Susan Dell, announced in December that they would donate $6.25 billion to US children through the Trump Accounts program. This aligns with the Dells’ past philanthropic focus, but it’s notable because they used their personal fortune rather than their foundation.
• On February 10, Trump invested $1 million to $5 million in Dell shares before saying “go out and buy a Dell” at the recent White House’s Mother’s Day event. The White House has said Trump’s assets are in a trust controlled by his children.

The icing on the…political synergy happened this week…when the Pentagon awarded Dell a $9.7 billion contract to provide software for the US military, which also contributed to its stock’s blockbuster day. But some government watchdogs questioned whether Trump’s stock purchases mean he could benefit from the deal.—MM

Trump’s $1.8b “anti-weaponization” fund temporarily blocked. Anyone hoping for a payout from the $1.776 billion fund to compensate victims of alleged weaponization of the Justice Department will have to wait. Yesterday, a federal judge overseeing a legal challenge to the fund barred the government from setting up the fund or moving money out of it—at least until a hearing in the case in June. The lawsuit was brought by individuals who claim they were targeted by the DOJ under Trump, but expect not to be paid from the fund. Later in the day, a different federal judge reopened the president’s case against the IRS, which the fund had been part of a deal to resolve. The judge scheduled a hearing on whether the case should be reopened to determine if “the court was the victim of a fraud” because of how the deal was struck.—AR

Trump held off making “final determination” on Iran deal. Before heading into a nearly two-hour Situation Room meeting with advisors yesterday, President Trump wrote on Truth Social that he wanted to make a “final determination” about a proposal to extend the Iran war ceasefire for 60 days, but no conclusion was reached. Iran’s chief negotiator said on X yesterday that the country has “no trust in guarantees or words” from the US, and that “no step will be taken before the other side acts.” Also yesterday, NBC News reported that Iran may have used a Chinese missile to shoot down the American F-15E fighter jet in April.—HVL

Mercedes-Benz could get banned from US under law aimed at Chinese cars. If a new law targeting Chinese vehicles that’s making its way through Congress passes in its current form, you may end up needing to make amends for all your friends driving Porsches. The bipartisan Motor Vehicle Modernization Act of 2026 would keep vehicles made by Mercedes-Benz out of the US, due to the German automaker’s largest shareholder being China’s state-owned BAIC, CNBC reported yesterday. The legislation would bar “any direct or indirect equity interest by a foreign-adversary government,” including China, from selling or importing vehicles in the US.—AR

Like parents getting a big phone bill because their tween has been secretly playing a freemium game, companies are reeling from the sticker shock of their staff’s AI use. And now, many are looking for ways to bring down the cost of employees’ use of AI tools that have become mandatory at some jobs.

One culprit is toxenmaxxing, the practice of using as many AI tokens as possible to let everyone know you work somewhere that’s at the forefront of next-gen emailing methodologies:

• Axios reported that one company recently spent $500,000 in a month because it didn’t put usage limits on Claude licenses for employees.
• Uber COO Andrew Macdonald said this week that the “link is not there” between increased spend on tokens and results.
• Amazon shut down an internal leaderboard designed to encourage token use. Other companies taking similar measures include Meta, Microsoft, Salesforce, and DoorDash.

Looking ahead…one CEO told CNBC that the AI tech, which has not come down in price as expected, “costs the same as people,” and that the AI budget is coming at the expense of future headcount. Nearly all corporate AI usage is done on the most expensive models, the CEO also said, making it a priority to find cheaper options for less complicated tasks.—DL