When investors woke up this morning, the continuing story of a fruitless AI spending splurge looked set to ensure that markets ended the week on a down note.

• Then the jobs report hit.

Why it matters: The market's fading love affair with Big Tech has suddenly collided with a steady stream of worrying macro data — themes sure to dominate attention until the Fed's next rate decision in September.

State of play: Major stock indexes all fell hard today. The Dow fell over 600 points, or 1.8%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite shed 2.4%, ending the day in correction territory from its recent high on July 10.

• Amazon shares fell 8.8%, driven by its growing AI spending (at the expense of current profits) and a disappointing revenue outlook.
• Intel, the chipmaker, jolted markets as well, shedding 26% since yesterday's massive earnings miss and a message that it was laying off 15% of its employees and halting its Q4 dividend.

The big picture: But today's market route was bigger than tech — the Russell 2000, an index of U.S. small-cap stocks, fell 3.5%.

• That's notable, as the Russell had gained over 11% over the last month (see below👇) in part reflecting capital moving out of giant "Magnificent Seven" tech stocks and into the broader market.
• Today, the Russell's fall reflected investors' newfound recession fears.

Zoom in: For that, you can thank today's U.S. jobs report. Data showed the U.S. economy added 114,000 jobs in July, far fewer than expected, and a slowdown from the prior month's downwardly revised 179,000 job gains.

• The unemployment rate rose to 4.3%, up from 4.1% in June, and the highest since 2021.
• That set off alarm bells, Axios' Neil Irwin noted, on the back of separate data earlier in the week showing a slowdown in hiring and manufacturing activity and a spike in jobless claims.

The bottom line: Two days ago, the market cheered the Fed's signaling of a September rate cut. Today, Sept. 18 feels a long way off.

🧳 Chevron is relocating to Houston from its headquarters in San Ramon, California. (Axios)

🔎 DOJ antitrust officials are reportedly looking into allegations that Nvidia is abusing its market dominance in AI chips. (Axios)

🤖 Google has decided to pull its "Dear Sydney" ad for its Gemini chatbot after criticism. (Axios)

The Justice Department sued TikTok and its Chinese-owned parent company today, alleging the social media app violates children's online privacy law.

The big picture: The popular platform engages in "massive-scale invasions of children's privacy" by collecting data from kids, who can create accounts without their parent's consent, the department said in the complaint.

• The department also accused TikTok and its parent company ByteDance of "failing to comply with parents' requests to delete their children's accounts and information."

Flashback: The FTC announced in June that it referred a complaint against TikTok to the DOJ over potential violations of the federal law governing children's privacy.

A TikTok spokesperson said the company disagrees with the allegations, many of which related to past events.

Go deeper

Olympic athletes compete for glory, their country ... and maybe, at times, a tidy sum of money.

Zoom in: Based on local reports, national Olympic committee data and sports associations, Hong Kong and Singapore pay the highest cash bonuses to winners, according to CNBC.

The intrigue: Hong Kong only has 34 athletes at the games this year and Singapore has 23, which means there are fewer podium opportunities and payouts.

• On the other hand, countries with some of the smallest purses are those with the largest teams, including the U.S., France and Australia.

Follow the money: Endorsement deals can juice returns on a medal, too.

• Of course not every medal winner has the star power of Simone Biles, who according to Quartz earned over $7 million in 2023.