Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL) shares plummeted 5.02% during intraday trading on Monday, marking a significant downturn for the tech giant. The stock was among the worst performers in both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 indices during the session.
The sharp decline follows the departure of two high-profile executives from Alphabet's artificial intelligence division. Noam Shazeer, Google's Vice President of Engineering and co-head of its Gemini AI model, recently announced his resignation to join rival firm OpenAI. This move was quickly followed by John Jumper, DeepMind vice president and 2024 Nobel Chemistry Prize co-recipient, who announced he is leaving to join competitor Anthropic.
These back-to-back exits highlight an intensifying pattern of high-level talent departing Alphabet's AI operations and come amid growing antitrust concerns. Reports indicate that internal dissatisfaction has been growing among DeepMind staff regarding the company's competitive strategy in the AI coding tools arena. Additionally, the stock decline occurred amid a broad-based technology sector rout and concerns over an imminent antitrust lawsuit from the U.S. Department of Justice.
