Microsoft Executives Sell Company Shares Amid AI Investment Controversy

Microsoft executives at the US Big Tech firm have sold shares on the open market in early June.

Judson Althoff, who oversees the company’s Cloud and AI operations, sold 15,500 common shares on June 1, netting approximately $7.15 million (around KRW 10 billion). On June 8 and 10, Chief Marketing Officer Takeshi Numoto disposed of a total of 7,000 shares, converting roughly $2.8 million (about KRW 4 billion) into cash; both executives still hold tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of shares, according to their filings.

In June alone, Microsoft’s share price fell amid concerns over heavy AI infrastructure investments and a slowdown in Azure cloud growth, erasing about $570 billion (approximately KRW 800 trillion) in market value—the company’s worst monthly decline since 2000.

Adding to the uncertainty, some shareholders have filed a class-action securities lawsuit against Microsoft, alleging it failed to properly disclose expenses and growth prospects related to its AI and cloud businesses.

Microsoft is a leading US Big Tech company best known for Windows, Office, Azure cloud and Copilot productivity software, as well as its cloud and AI infrastructure. Leveraging its partnership with OpenAI, the company has been ramping up investments in generative AI, pouring capital into large-scale data centers and facilities—making the pace of AI monetization and the scale of its capital expenditures key focuses for investors.