Amazon, which was in the news this week for kissing Donald Trump’s ass, rang up $155.7 billion in revenue during the first quarter, according to results released after the bell on Wall Street.

That was more or less in line with estimates. Consensus expected $155.2 billion. Sales were up almost 9% YoY, a decent result that would’ve been better were it not for a $1.4 billion currency headwind.

The company’s at the center of pretty much every important macro-market debate. Jeff Bezos is a Trumper now, and although he doesn’t technically run the company anymore, whatever he says still goes, which is why Trump called him instead of Andy Jassy earlier this week when Punchbowl reported that Amazon was considering displaying the tariff impact on prices across the site. Shortly after that call, the idea was dead.

China’s critical for Amazon just like it is for any retailer. With tariffs where they are — i.e., in the triple-digits — there are questions about the company’s capacity to navigate draconian levies on previously cheap goods without raising prices to shoppers. There are also questions about how Amazon’s network of sellers will cope.

For now, things are still going ok, apparently. At the midpoint, the current-quarter revenue guide is $161.5 billion, literally dead-on consensus. That’d be 9% (a little better, technically) YoY growth, not bad, all things considered.

In addition to being swept up in the tariff storm and wrapped up in domestic politics thanks to Bezos’s inclusion in Trump’s coterie of pet oligarchs, Amazon’s also running the AI race, and Jassy’s the Cloud king. So, again, the company’s got an iron in every fire that matters, and to Amazon investors, nothing’s more important than Cloud, which is to say AWS.

On that front, Jassy’s baby came up a little short. Sales of $29.3 billion were light. Consensus wanted $29.4 billion. I realize that seems like splitting hairs, but if there’s a hair markets are inclined to split, it’s this one. AWS’s growth rate was 17%. Analysts wanted 17.2%.

In the release, Jassy ran through the usual compendium of milestones. Alexa’s “meaningfully smarter” and “more capable” now. She also “takes actions for customers,” which… I mean, no thanks? Amazon set “another delivery speed record” for Prime members during the quarter, which I guess means if you order by 1:00 PM, a drone with drop your new foot spa in the backyard by 1:15, right around the time Mary, who works nights at the Citgo up the street, will be knocking on the front door to deliver your 32-pronged head massager.

Also, Jassy’s Trainium2 chips are “mak[ing] it easier for AWS customers to train models and run inference more flexibly,” so that’s good. He’s also putting satellites into low-earth orbit, where they risk running into Jeff the next time he blasts himself into space.

Net income was $17.1 billion in Q1, and EPS of $1.59 beat easily (analysts expected $1.36). Notably, the Q2 operating income guide was light, where that means more than $2 billion short of the $17.85 billion the Street expects, taking the midpoint.

I don’t think there’s enough here, honestly. Maybe management can fill in the blanks on the call, but I didn’t find anything in the initial release for investors to latch onto. Between the so-so sales guide, the AWS miss (however slight), the lackluster profit outlook and lots of uncertainty around the impact of the tariffs, this report felt underwhelming. Or maybe “lacking” is better, while readily acknowledging that Bezos’s direct line to The White House aside, there’s not a lot Amazon can do to mitigate the lack of visibility created by Trump’s shifting policies.

Meanwhile, Apple beat on the top-line in its results, also released on Thursday afternoon. Sales of $95.4 billion were up 5% YoY. The Street saw $94.6 billion.

After a dicey six-quarter stretch from late-2022 to early-2023, revenue growth resumed, but Apple has some problems, not least of which is that Tim Cook’s seen as woefully behind in the AI race.

One issue for Apple with AI is that the company, particularly under Cook, is dedicated to the maintenance of a “good guy” reputation. AI, by contrast, is a business where you risk launching the nukes first and ask questions never. Some companies are more cautious than others, but in many respects, Apple’s become pathologically risk averse, a bent that simply isn’t compatible with the speed at which AI’s advancing.

When you throw in what’s starting to look like an endemic innovation problem, the world’s best company is muddling through what I dare say is a slow-burning crisis. On top of it all, Cook has to cope with the tariffs, and specifically with delusional folks like Howard Lutnick who’s still — as in he brought it up again just this week — talking about moving final iPhone assembly to California.

On the bright side, iPhone sales were $46.84 billion during the quarter. That was better than the $45.82 billion consensus saw. Mac sales beat at $7.95 billion, iPad too at $6.40 billion. Wearables chipped in $7.52 billion, $500 million short of estimates. Services revenue of $26.65 billion was also short.

The elephant in the room’s obviously Greater China sales, which missed pretty badly, at $16 billion. That was $850 million short, and would appear to suggest Cook’s still having issues with the company’s foothold in an increasingly competitive, not to mention increasingly patriotic, Chinese consumer market.

Apple raised the dividend and the board authorized another bajillion ($100 billion) of buybacks, but that’s really not what investors are concerned about right now. Nobody thinks about Apple and says, “Are they generally competent and do they understand the basic principles of shareholder value maximization?” (Yes and yes.) This is, or at least was until very recently, the best consumer products company in the history of the world, and one of the best overall companies ever created.

The problem, rather, is that Cook’s starting to look complacent or worse, like a deer in headlights. Apple needs to i) reassure on the supply chain (impossible without exiting China, which is itself impossible), ii) catch up in AI (impossible, because Apple’s not an AI company, it’s a hardware company and Cook will anyway never prioritize speed over safety) and iii) make a new product that’s as impactful as the iPhone (impossible unless someone goes to Jobs’s tomb and sees the stone rolled away).

Cook kept it positive, as is his wont. “We were happy to welcome iPhone 16e to our lineup, and to introduce powerful new Macs and iPads,” he said Thursday. “And we were proud to announce that we’ve cut our carbon emissions by 60% over the past decade.”

With apologies to Tim, that quotable sums up Apple’s problems. Every few quarters, they’re “welcoming” another facelifted iPhone and touting faster Macs and tablets. There’s nothing wrong with that, but people want something new. And in case Cook can’t read the political room, allow me: Nobody gives a sh-t right now about carbon emissions.

On the call, Cook said tariffs will add $900 million to Apple’s costs during the current quarter.