Microsoft's Debt Exploded by 15.4 Billion Dollars in the Past 9 Months Alone (Despite All the Layoffs)
As of minutes ago, at 6PM on a Friday, the numbers are finally made public
Earlier on (today) we published "Financial Engineering Companies: A Company Worth 4 Trillion Dollars Would Not Borrow 100+ Billion Dollars at Interest Rates Like Today's"
As Ryan put it in IRC: "Borrowing at today's interest rates needs to be avoided unless there's no alternative."
Looking at the debt of MSFT (Microsoft), it exploded dramatically despite the company firing close to 30,000 people so far this year:
Microsoft borrows money at a pace of about 2 billion dollars per month.
Success story?
After nearly 10 waves of layoffs in 2025 (not 2 as the mainstream media likes to claim) the workforce is a lot smaller and money is still absent, except for speculation in Wall Street. Microsoft pundits lie about the "headcount" - a myth that we debunked here many times before; IBM tells similar lies.
Considering the debt of MSFT (Microsoft), would you invest in such a company based on a speculative "worth"? "Also," an associate argues, "what about debt shifting into newly acquired companies?"
It's called debt loading and it can make the above figure even higher. "The (false) 4-trillion dollar valuation needs addressing, since that will come up in discussions elsewhere."
If Microsoft is really worth trillions of dollars, then it'll pay back its debt. But it cannot. It's a lie like many others of its kind [1, 2].
Why would a company that needs to borrow so much money (at an obscene interest level/rate, too) insist that its "worth" skyrockets? Reality check is truly imperative now.
"Microsoft is going to try to use the false valuation to distract from the debt," our associate says, "and the firings are part of what the LARPers use to raise stock prices; that along with massive buy-backs. The firings, however, are cutting into the ability to even make future revenue let alone future profits."
When people ask, "what is the actual interest rate?" one can go to US government data. The era of "Cheap Money" or "Free Money" was over many years ago; there is no reason to borrow money unless there is absolutely no other choice.
If gut feelings or common sense don't add up (like XBox collapsing and Microsoft claiming to be doing extremely well), then someone isn't telling the truth. █
"Microsoft, the world’s most valuable company, declared a profit of $4.5 billion in 1998; when the cost of options awarded that year, plus the change in the value of outstanding options, is deducted, the firm made a loss of $18 billion, according to Smithers."