A Trump endorsement, $64B in AI orders, and a UBS downgrade collide in one turbulent week
Dell Technologies has given investors two very different days to process in the span of 72 hours, and the questions they leave behind are as significant as the numbers themselves.
Shares of the company, listed on the New York Stock Exchange as DELL, fell 6.11% today to $244.49, pulling back sharply after reaching a 52-week high of $263.99 on Friday, May 8. That Friday surge of as much as 14.6% intraday, closing at $260.46, followed a Mother’s Day event at the White House in which President Donald Trump publicly urged Americans to purchase a Dell computer. Even with today’s decline, Dell is still up roughly 95% year-to-date and approximately 137% over the past 12 months.
The Trump endorsement and what preceded it
The presidential moment did not arrive without context. In December 2025, Michael and Susan Dell announced a $6.25 billion philanthropic commitment tied to a federal wealth-building initiative called Trump Accounts, part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act set to launch July 4, 2026.
Under the program, the Treasury Department will contribute $1,000 into investment accounts for U.S. citizen children born between January 2025 and December 2028. The Dells’ portion amounts to $250 per account for 25 million children aged 10 and under in families with median incomes at or below $150,000, extending benefits to children born before the program’s eligibility window.
The commitment is reported to exceed the Dells’ total charitable giving since 1999. Michael Dell has an estimated net worth of approximately $165 billion, according to Bloomberg. The White House has not indicated whether the endorsement was coordinated with the prior philanthropic pledge.
The AI business case that underpins the stock
Separate from politics, Dell’s core AI infrastructure business has undergone a genuine transformation. The company recorded more than $64 billion in AI orders during fiscal 2026 and entered fiscal 2027 with a record $43 billion server backlog. Management expects AI server revenue to nearly double to $50 billion within the current fiscal year, following a 342% year-over-year increase in AI-optimized server revenue in the most recent reporting period.
That AI momentum has also driven meaningful margin expansion. Operating expenses grew just 5% during a quarter when revenue surged 39%, producing a 43% year-over-year increase in quarterly operating income. The company guided for 23% revenue growth and 25% non-GAAP earnings per share growth in fiscal 2027, and it paired that outlook with a 20% dividend increase and a new $10 billion share repurchase authorization.
Why UBS downgraded despite the momentum
In the days leading up to the White House event, Mizuho raised its Dell price target from $215 to $260, citing rising enterprise AI infrastructure demand. Bank of America and Citigroup also lifted their respective targets.
But UBS moved in the opposite direction over the weekend, downgrading Dell from Buy to Neutral while simultaneously raising its price target to $243 from $167. The firm acknowledged the strength of Dell’s AI server business and projected 25% earnings growth in fiscal 2027, along with 100% growth in the AI server segment. The concern is that investors appear to be pricing in earnings per share growth of 30% to 35%, which exceeds both UBS’s projections and Dell’s own stated long-term growth expectation in the midteens.
UBS also flagged a projected revenue growth deceleration to 6% to 7% in fiscal years 2028 and 2029, suggesting the current multiple may reflect assumptions that will prove difficult to sustain. That concern is gaining traction on Wall Street: the share of analysts rating Dell the equivalent of Hold has risen to 31% from 19% in January, according to FactSet.
The next tangible data point arrives May 28, when Dell reports its first-quarter fiscal 2027 earnings. Investors will be watching whether that $43 billion server backlog is converting into revenue on schedule and whether high-bandwidth memory and GPU supply constraints are creating any meaningful delays.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. The author and publication are not registered investment advisors and do not provide personalized investment recommendations.