Hyperscaler Capex per Employee
This chart divides trailing-12-month capital expenditure by reported fiscal year-end headcount at Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Meta. It measures company-wide accounting capital intensity—not AI-only spending, investment received by each worker, automation, or jobs replaced.
What does it show?
In 2025, trailing capex per reported employee reached a ten-year high at all four companies, led by Meta at about $884,000 per employee.
Methodology
Divides trailing-12-month whole-company capital expenditure by reported fiscal year-end headcount for Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Meta from 2016 through 2025. Capex uses SEC XBRL cash-flow facts: cumulative year-to-date values are differenced into fiscal quarters and four consecutive quarters are summed. Headcount is extracted from each company’s 10-K employee disclosure. Microsoft is sampled at its June fiscal year-end; the other three are sampled at calendar year-end. Oracle is omitted because the dashboard does not maintain the same reviewed headcount history. The ratio is a measure of company-wide accounting capital intensity—not AI-only spending, investment per individual worker, automation, or jobs replaced. Acquisitions, leases, outsourcing, business mix, workforce definitions, and fiscal calendars can affect comparisons.