AI giants Meta, Microsoft, NVIDIA see shares amid Iran threat, AI cryptos crash
Major US technology and AI stocks, such as Meta, Microsoft, and NVIDIA, crashed after Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps threatened military action against their regional bases.
Summary
- US technology stocks, including Meta, Microsoft, and NVIDIA, fell sharply after Iran designated 18 American companies as military targets.
- Outages at AWS data centers in the Middle East have impacted AI and cloud services, raising concerns about operational risks to critical infrastructure.
- AI-linked crypto tokens such as TAO, NEAR, and ICP declined 4–6% as geopolitical tensions spilled over into digital asset markets.
On April 1, 2026, the IRGC officially designated 18 US companies as “legitimate targets” described by Tehran as retaliation for the targeted assassination of senior Iranian leaders by US and Israeli forces. These include Alphabet (Google), Apple, Microsoft, Meta, NVIDIA, Intel, IBM, Oracle, Cisco, Dell, HP, Palantir, Boeing, Tesla, GE, JPMorgan Chase, G42, and Spire Solutions.
After the announcement, Meta shares fell 13.31% while Microsoft and NVIDIA shares fell 8.34% and 6.00%, respectively.
The threats translated into immediate operational risks with reports of drone activity causing power failures at two Amazon Web Services data centers in the Middle East, disrupting AI and cloud services in the region, affecting bank payment processors and consumer applications. Notably, Anthropic’s Claude AI platform has reportedly been offline for some time because it relies on AWS infrastructure.
Iranian officials say these ICT and AI companies are involved in tracking and identifying targets for “terrorist operations” by Iranian leaders.
On the other hand, the American administration rejected these threats, White House officials said that the American military is ready to prevent any possible aggression. Meanwhile, companies like Intel and Boeing are already implementing regional worker safety measures amid increased geopolitical and kinetic risk to critical infrastructure.
News of attacks on AI-focused companies has also spilled over into AI-focused crypto assets, which rely on the hardware and cloud ecosystem of NVIDIA and other giants that have come under attack.
According to data from crypto.news, Chainlink (LINK), currently the largest AI coin with a market cap of more than 6 billion dollars, has fallen by 5.8% in the last 24 hours. Bittensor (TAO), Near Protocol (NEAR), and Internet Computer (ICP) also recorded roughly the same losses between 4% and 5%. Together, negative sentiment in the AI market led to market capitalization falling more than 3% to $0.59 billion at the end.
While these assets are at risk of further losses if Iran starts carrying out more strikes, a sector-wide rebound could be on the cards if the US is able to de-escalate the situation.
Disclosure: This article does not represent investment advice. The content and materials presented on this page are for educational purposes only.
