In five minutes, Microsoft lost $ 17 billion

Microsoft Corporation lost an estimated $ 17 billion in market value just five minutes after a court order to suspend a massive contract with the US Department of Defense (Pentagon) issued Thursday.

The court order was issued after Amazon e-marketing claimed in a lawsuit that President Donald Trump was biased against its owner Jeff Bezos, which prevented her from winning the $ 10 billion contract, she said, and the complaint is demanding a reassessment of the offer and a new decision.

The temporary order prevents the Ministry of Defense from starting work on the contract known as “JEDI”, and after the judicial decision, the value of Microsoft’s shares fell on Thursday within five minutes from 185.40 to $ 183.16, and the company’s share closed at $ 183.71.

Microsoft shares, which valued at $ 1.4 trillion, incurred a loss of 1% of the company’s market value on Thursday.

While Microsoft expressed disappointment with the decision, it said it was confident of moving forward with the contract in the end.

As a criminal condition, Amazon will have to pay $ 42 million to cover any costs or damages that arise if it loses the lawsuit.

The Pentagon has not commented on the judicial decision to suspend the ten-year contract with Microsoft.

The contract for the “corporate infrastructure” program aims to connect all branches of the military and ensure their exchange of information in an AI-enhanced cloud system.

The move is a victory for Amazon, which protested the award of the contract, which amounts to $ 10 billion, to Microsoft in October.

In a preliminary reaction, a Pentagon spokesman said, “We are disappointed by today’s decision, and we believe that the measures taken in this case have unnecessarily delayed the implementation of the Defense Ministry modernization strategy and have deprived our fighters of the set of capabilities they urgently need.”