Apollo’s Torsten Slok Warns AI Has Delivered ‘Zero Financial Payoff’ Outside Tech — 'AI Story Will Be Decided In The S&P 493, Not The Mag 7'

• Apollo's Slok says AI has delivered 'zero financial payoff' to corporate America outside Big Tech. • Magnificent 7 revenue/employee (~$780K) and margins (~30%) dwarf S&P 493 figures (~$525K, ~10%). • AI spending is highly concentrated: top 10% of firms account for ~95-99% of inference, cloud and AI model spend. Apollo Global Management's chief economist Torsten Slok warned in a Saturday note that despite massive AI investment, the technology has produced 'zero financial payoff' for corporate America outside the tech sector. His data shows a widening gap between the Magnificent 7 and the other 493 S&P 500 companies: the Mag 7's inflation-adjusted revenue per employee has reached roughly $780,000, versus about $525,000 for the S&P 493, while profit margins sit near 30% for the Mag 7 versus about 10% for the rest of the index. Slok also found no clear acceleration in total factor productivity despite the AI boom. He attributes the limited macro impact to concentration: the top 10% of firms account for 99.5% of model-serving/inference spending, 99% of neocloud spending, and over 95% of OpenAI/Anthropic-related spend, with 80% of top AI spenders being VC-backed. 'The AI story will be decided in the S&P 493, not the Mag 7,' Slok said. SPY, QQQ and DIA each ticked up slightly after hours Friday, while AI-focused ETFs AIQ and IYW are up 22% and 25% over the past year, respectively. In a related piece, NEAR Protocol's CTO Anton Astafiev said the NEAR network is better positioned than Bitcoin (BTC) to handle a future cryptographic 'Black Swan' event, thanks to its flexible account design that allows new signing schemes without a disruptive network-wide transition.