Convergence Investment Partners LLC raised its stake in shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META – Free Report) by 74.8% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 17,510 shares of the social networking company’s stock after buying an additional 7,494 shares during the period. Meta Platforms comprises approximately 0.9% of Convergence Investment Partners LLC’s holdings, making the stock its 14th largest position. Convergence Investment Partners LLC’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $9,863,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.
Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. First National Bank Sioux Falls raised its stake in Meta Platforms by 0.7% during the 4th quarter. First National Bank Sioux Falls now owns 2,001 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $1,321,000 after acquiring an additional 14 shares during the period. Levin Capital Strategies L.P. lifted its stake in Meta Platforms by 1.4% in the 4th quarter. Levin Capital Strategies L.P. now owns 984 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $649,000 after purchasing an additional 14 shares in the last quarter. Vista Capital Partners Inc. boosted its stake in Meta Platforms by 1.3% during the second quarter. Vista Capital Partners Inc. now owns 1,075 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $794,000 after buying an additional 14 shares during the last quarter. Acorn Creek Capital LLC boosted its position in shares of Meta Platforms by 0.7% during the 4th quarter. Acorn Creek Capital LLC now owns 2,118 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $1,398,000 after acquiring an additional 15 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Objective Capital Management LLC lifted its position in Meta Platforms by 2.8% during the fourth quarter. Objective Capital Management LLC now owns 553 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $365,000 after purchasing an additional 15 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 79.91% of the company’s stock.
Analyst Ratings Changes Several equities analysts recently commented on the stock. Wedbush cut their price target on shares of Meta Platforms from $671.00 to $595.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, July 30th. Weiss Ratings downgraded shares of Meta Platforms from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “hold (c+)” rating in a research report on Friday, June 26th. Monness Crespi & Hardt decreased their price objective on Meta Platforms from $890.00 to $730.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, July 30th. Rosenblatt Securities boosted their price target on Meta Platforms from $883.00 to $886.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday. Finally, UBS Group cut their target price on Meta Platforms from $766.00 to $715.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, July 30th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-four have assigned a Buy rating and nine have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, Meta Platforms has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $785.22.
Check Out Our Latest Stock Analysis on META Meta Platforms Stock Performance NASDAQ META opened at $578.02 on Monday. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a twelve month low of $520.26 and a twelve month high of $790.80. The stock has a market cap of $1.47 trillion, a PE ratio of 21.77, a P/E/G ratio of 1.00 and a beta of 1.25. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $592.28 and a 200-day simple moving average of $611.14. The company has a current ratio of 2.23, a quick ratio of 2.23 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32.
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META – Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Wednesday, July 29th. The social networking company reported $6.18 earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $7.19 by ($1.01). The business had revenue of $60.80 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $60.22 billion. Meta Platforms had a return on equity of 33.18% and a net margin of 29.83%.Meta Platforms’s quarterly revenue was up 28.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $7.14 earnings per share. Equities analysts anticipate that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 28.17 earnings per share for the current year.
Insider Activity at Meta Platforms In other Meta Platforms news, CFO Susan J. Li sold 9,196 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $550.61, for a total transaction of $5,063,409.56. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer directly owned 13,186 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $7,260,343.46. This represents a 41.09% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CTO Andrew Bosworth sold 7,848 shares of Meta Platforms stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $558.00, for a total value of $4,379,184.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief technology officer directly owned 828 shares in the company, valued at $462,024. This represents a 90.46% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 32,987 shares of company stock worth $19,202,995. Insiders own 13.53% of the company’s stock.
Trending Headlines about Meta Platforms Here are the key news stories impacting Meta Platforms this week:
Positive Sentiment: The settlement limits litigation risk by resolving claims from a broad coalition of states without an admission of liability. Analysts view the payment as manageable relative to Meta’s revenue and cash generation, while the company avoids potentially disruptive court-ordered changes to products such as Reels, Stories and its recommendation systems. Meta’s social media settlement leaves its money machine unscathed Positive Sentiment: Meta’s advertising engine continues to benefit from improved ad-ranking technology and growing advertiser use of artificial intelligence to create campaigns, supporting demand even as the company spends heavily on AI infrastructure. Ca$htag$: Meta’s AI Bet Not Showing Returns, Yet Positive Sentiment: Rosenblatt raised its price target to $886 and maintained a buy rating, pointing to substantial potential upside from current levels. The stock’s valuation also remains below that of many large technology peers, strengthening the bargain argument for some investors. Meta price target raised by Rosenblatt Neutral Sentiment: The new teen safeguards—including time limits, muted notifications and stronger parental controls—could become a regulatory template for TikTok, YouTube, Snap and international markets. This creates industrywide compliance costs, but may also give Meta greater legal clarity. Meta settlement puts social media industry on notice Negative Sentiment: Investors still face execution and financial risks: age-verification technology may be unreliable, critics say the protections do not address teen mental-health concerns, and regulators in the U.K., South Korea and elsewhere may demand similar measures. Restrictions could eventually reduce teen engagement and advertising opportunities. Meta’s child-safety deal and age verification Negative Sentiment: Meta’s substantial AI capital spending has not yet produced a proportionate revenue payoff, while an executive overseeing India and Southeast Asia is leaving for OpenAI. Those developments add to concerns about returns on investment and management stability. Meta executive leaves for OpenAI Meta Platforms Company Profile (Free Report)
Meta Platforms, Inc (NASDAQ: META), formerly Facebook, Inc, is a global technology company best known for building social networking services and immersive computing platforms. Founded in 2004 and headquartered in Menlo Park, California, the company operates a family of consumer-facing products and services that connect users, creators and businesses. In October 2021 the company rebranded as Meta to reflect an expanded strategic focus on augmented and virtual reality technologies alongside its social media businesses.
Meta’s core consumer products include Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, which enable social networking, messaging, content sharing and community building across mobile and desktop devices.
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Meta (META.O) has agreed to improve how it verifies the age of users of its platforms such as Facebook and Instagram as part of an $18 billion legal settlement with U.S. states that is aimed at curbing children's use of social media.
Here is a look at what Meta said it will do to ensure that users are as old as they say they are, and some of the legal issues that could complicate age checks.
Meta policy bars children under 13 from using Facebook or Instagram and permits teenagers to use the platforms with some limits on content. Meta has acknowledged that younger users sometimes lie about their ages when creating accounts, and the company has faced increasing pressure from countries around the world to limit children's access to social media.
Meta has not historically asked users for proof of age such as a photo ID. Instead the company said it looks at contextual clues, like birthday posts or celebrations of school grades, to identify accounts that are being used by children.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified in February that age verification would be more effective if it was handled by makers of mobile devices, an approach taken by a Texas state law that requires people under 18 to get parental consent before downloading an age-restricted app onto their device.
Meta agreed to the multi-state settlement, announced on August 26, to resolve legal claims that it designed social media platforms to addict children.
The settlement requires Meta to make broad changes related to users under 18, such as setting daily usage limits and disabling push notifications at night. It also calls for stronger age checks for young users, but it does not require Meta to take strict verification steps such as checking the photo IDs of users or asking them to upload a video selfie.
The settlement focuses particular attention on age checks for children below age 13, requiring Meta to take extra steps such as searching the friend networks of the accounts of the youngest users in an effort to identify and eliminate them. The company must also make it easier for social media users to report suspected children's accounts, and it allows an independent auditor to review Meta's efforts to check ages.
The settlement allows Meta to temporarily use some data generated by children it identifies in order to train an AI model to detect under-13 users in the future, similar to its current approach for identifying the accounts of suspected teenagers.
WHAT ARE THE LEGAL HURDLES IN DETERMINING AGES?
Meta has previously described both legal and practical roadblocks to stricter age assurance, including a 1998 federal law called the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA. This statute holds companies liable for damages if they collect personal data from children under age 13 without parental consent.
Meta and other social media companies have argued that this law puts them in a bind because it restricts them from collecting from children the kind of data that would reliably verify a person's age, such as IDs, biometric information or detailed records of their online activity.
Experts who advocate for better protections for children online have argued that social media companies have tried to use COPPA as a distraction to avoid taking responsibility for allowing children onto their platforms.
DOES THE SETTLEMENT ADDRESS CHILDREN'S PRIVACY?
The $18 billion settlement, as well as a $942 million judgment in a New Mexico court case on August 6, have attempted to thread the needle, requiring more proactive age-verification measures without triggering potential violations of COPPA.
In New Mexico, the judge concluded that the online-privacy law restricted him from ordering Meta to ask children to submit personal data or be passively tracked online, and said that strict age-verification requirements could put Meta at an unfair disadvantage to social media competitors. So the judge ordered changes intended to improve age assurances "within the limits of COPPA." The settlement uses a similar approach.
The Federal Trade Commission, which enforces COPPA for the U.S. government, issued a policy statement in February that it would not take action against any company that collects personal information for the sole purpose of determining a user's age via age-verification technologies.
Legal experts said that the FTC policy provides only a partial shield for companies because U.S. states have their own authority to enforce COPPA violations even when the FTC declines to do so.
Several states had sued Meta, alleging online-privacy violations, but dropped those claims as part of the settlement.
The takedown removed several advertisements. The harder problem is proving Meta can stop fraudulent campaigns before regulators find them. Summary
Meta traded near $571.41 after India warned about malware disguised as adult-content apps.
Meta Platforms META, the social-media and digital-advertising giant, slid approximately 1.2% to $570.90 Monday as Reuters spotlighted another crack in its advertising defenses. The outlet uncovered 39 Facebook and Instagram ads allegedly funneling Indian users toward malware built to steal banking credentials. Meta removed them after Reuters intervened.
The trap was simple and ugly. Adult-content images allegedly lured users into downloading Android files outside official app stores, putting banking PINs and one-time passwords at risk. India lost nearly $2.4 billion to cyber fraud in 2025. Meta's advertising standards already ban nudity, scams and deceptive promotions. The rules were clear. The screening failed.
Thirty-nine ads are a rounding error beside Meta's 3.6 billion daily users and $60.8 billion of second-quarter revenue. The valuation gap is harder to ignore: the chart puts the stock 32.47% below its $845.42 GF Value estimate. That discount may grab investors' attention, but scale cuts both ways. With impressions jumping 14% and average ad prices rising 12% last quarter, Meta's money machine is accelerating—and every weak checkpoint becomes more expensive.
Disclosures I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and have no plans to buy any new positions in the stocks mentioned within the next 72 hours.
Meta (META.O) on Monday removed dozens of advertisements after India flagged a pattern of Facebook and Instagram ads using sexually explicit content to lure users into downloading malware that could steal banking credentials and drain bank accounts.
India recorded nearly $2.4 billion in cyber-fraud losses in 2025, government data shows, as scam operators increasingly target the country's digital-payments boom.
The government said ads on Facebook and Instagram operating under names such as "Night Play" and "Kyss" directed users to phishing websites. It said it had observed a rise in financial fraud involving what it described as "malicious Android applications masquerading as pornography apps".
Reuters found at least 39 such ads still active after the government advisory was issued on Monday, with many of them using sexually explicit video thumbnails to attract clicks. Meta took down all of the ads shortly after Reuters flagged them to the company, seeking comment on the advisory.
Meta did not respond to Reuters queries.
Reuters is first to report Meta's removal of the ads following the government advisory.
The U.S. technology giant's policies state that ads "must not contain adult nudity and sexual activity". They also prohibit ads for "products, services, schemes or offers using identified deceptive or misleading practices", including those intended to scam users out of money.
It is the second time in recent weeks that India has raised concerns about financial fraud on a major technology platform. Reuters previously reported that the government directed Google to shut down hundreds of accounts on its Firebase platform after finding criminals were using the service to impersonate major banks.
Meta had internally projected that scam and banned goods advertising would generate about 10% of its 2024 revenue, or roughly $16 billion, even as the company says it is cracking down on such ads, Reuters reported last year.
One ad, while still active, led to a website promoting a video app that promised hundreds of pornographic videos and round-the-clock content. Access required users to directly download a file named "Movexa.apk" outside an official app store.
India's advisory said the apps could secretly access information stored on users' phones, capture one-time passwords and bank PINs, and transfer money from accounts without the owner's knowledge.
Meta Platforms (META +1.21%) is once again releasing some of its artificial intelligence (AI) models with open weights, allowing developers to download and modify them.
The company released Muse Glimmer, a 30-billion-parameter model, on Aug. 10. However, as of Aug. 25, the company had not yet released the weights for its more powerful flagship model, Muse Spark 1.2.
So, does Meta Platforms' heavy investment in AI infrastructure make sense if it plans to make more of its AI models publicly available?
Image source: Getty Images.
Earning money from AI without selling models Unlike OpenAI and Anthropic, Meta Platforms does not need to rely primarily on subscriptions, application programming interfaces (APIs), and enterprise software to monetize its AI models directly. Instead, the company is leveraging AI to improve recommendations and advertising across Facebook and Instagram. The company is also developing business messaging and AI-agent opportunities through WhatsApp and Messenger.
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Meta Platforms' AI strategy is already showing results. In the second quarter (ended June 30), improvements to its AI models generated an 8.3% increase in Facebook ad clicks and a 15.7% rise in ad conversions. Additionally, an early Instagram AI pilot increased the number of users completing targeted in-app actions by 1%.
Heavy investment Meta Platforms' revenue grew 28% year over year to $60.8 billion, while operating cash flow was $31.9 billion in the second quarter. With the company's capital expenditures reaching $31.1 billion, free cash flow was only $784 million. Meta Platforms now expects $130 billion to $145 billion in capital spending in 2026, up from its initial $115 billion to $135 billion range.
Meta Platforms' spending commitments also extend well beyond 2026. The company had $81.6 billion of noncancelable contractual commitments due in 2027, mostly associated with cloud capacity and investments in technical infrastructure, data centers, and Reality Labs hardware. The company also entered into another $68 billion in data center leases, expected to begin in 2027 and 2028.
Meta Platforms' high spending could also weigh on future profit margins. Depreciation expense associated with property and equipment rose 40% year over year to $6 billion in the second quarter. Construction in progress also reached $80.3 billion, with most of those costs related to data centers, servers, and network infrastructure. As those assets come online, depreciation expenses could rise further, putting pressure on operating margins.
Reasonable valuation Meta Platforms is currently trading at around 16.8 times analysts' expected 2027 earnings per share of $33.9 (as of Aug. 25). The valuation appears reasonable, considering the company may not need significant user growth for its AI investments to pay off. With 3.6 billion people already using Meta Platforms' apps daily, even relatively small improvements in user engagement and ad conversion can potentially translate into meaningful revenue gains.
However, this advantage has a limit. Much of the growth in the number of ads Meta shows is coming from lower-monetization markets such as Asia-Pacific. Hence, local-language business agents are particularly important, since they may help the company generate more revenue from users in markets where advertising currently monetizes at lower rates.
So, AI needs to continue lifting revenue per user while capital spending and depreciation eventually moderate. Meta Platforms' forward earnings multiple leaves room for upside. But if AI spending remains elevated without a corresponding improvement in advertising monetization, the stock may struggle to grow.
Six days before the start of a federal trial over online child safety, C.J. Mahoney, Meta’s chief legal officer, traveled to Nashville on Aug. 6 to meet with lawyers for about a dozen states. He wanted to broker an enormous settlement, two people familiar with the conversation said.
Meta had already suffered losses in court this year over claims it created addictive products that harmed young users. Mark Zuckerberg had endured a full day of grilling on the witness stand during one of those trials. (“You’re mischaracterizing this,” he kept repeating.) He was likely to be questioned again at the federal trial in California, in which a coalition of states had sued Meta, arguing that the company had contributed to a national child mental health crisis.
Over bagels and coffee in an Art Deco office on Tennessee’s Capitol grounds, Mr. Mahoney presented his terms, which Mr. Zuckerberg had personally approved, according to four people familiar with the negotiations. Meta would pay the states up to $19 billion and make changes to its platforms to improve teen safety. Some of the payment would be withheld unless all states joined and other social media companies also settled.
For the states attorney general in the room, the offer was intriguing. They had been negotiating with the Silicon Valley giant for months with little progress, the people said. On Tuesday, 47 states — two had dropped out of the lawsuit — the District of Columbia and several territories agreed to a settlement worth roughly $17 billion.
“There’s a saying here in Tennessee,” Jonathan Skrmetti, the state’s attorney general, said in one of the meetings with nearly all the state attorneys general, encouraging them not to get greedy. “Pigs get fat, and hogs get slaughtered.”
The settlement, one of the largest agreements between a company and a group of states embroiled in litigation, was announced on Wednesday. This account of how it came together is based on a dozen interviews with state leaders, former and current Meta executives, court documents and trial testimony.
Mark Zuckerberg, center, Meta’s chief executive, outside a court in Los Angeles, where he testified in a lawsuit against the company in February. — Mark Abramson for The New York Times
For years, Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, seemed to have an impenetrable defense against child safety lawsuits. The company’s aces were Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a 1996 law that protects platforms from liability over what users post on their sites, and the First Amendment, which protects free speech.
But concerns have mounted globally over the harmful effects of social media on children. Australia last year became the first country to bar children under 16 from using social media, and many other countries carried out or are considering similar rules.
In the United States, a flood of online child safety lawsuits have been filed since 2022, and the plaintiffs focused on a new argument claiming that social media sites designed their products in a harmful way that violates consumer protection and other laws.
The suits accused the companies of knowingly creating sites that were as addictive as cigarettes, taking a page from a strategy used against Big Tobacco in the 1990s. Suddenly, relying on Section 230 didn’t look so safe.
A protest by parents against social media platforms outside the courthouse during Meta’s trial in Oakland, Calif., in August. — Noah Berger/Associated Press
At Meta, concern was growing about the cases, according to two people familiar with thinking inside the company.
In January, Meta hired Mr. Mahoney, a veteran litigator who had been general counsel at Microsoft. Mr. Mahoney, who reports directly to Mr. Zuckerberg, took the position of chief legal officer in part because he was attracted to the prospect of negotiating a settlement, one of the people familiar with Meta’s thinking said. He had negotiated complex deals in the past, most notably in 2020 when, as deputy U.S. trade representative, he was a lead negotiator of the Trump administration’s trade deal with Canada and Mexico.
Phil Weiser, the attorney general of Colorado, in Oakland in August. He met with Meta’s chief legal officer in January to begin settlement talks. — Noah Berger/Associated Press
Just days after starting his new job, Mr. Mahoney called Attorney General Phil Weiser of Colorado and Mr. Skrmetti of Tennessee, the lead negotiators for states, to begin settlement talks, four of the people familiar with the conversations said. Mr. Mahoney, who is based in Silicon Valley, flew out to meet them separately in their states. He wanted to explore a grand settlement that would end federal and state cases brought by all of the nation’s attorneys general.
The two sides had held previous talks. But the tenor of the conversations changed because Mr. Mahoney seemed so clearly interested in reaching a resolution.
But a roadblock immediately became apparent because Meta was reluctant to make some changes to its products, three of the people said. That was a nonstarter for many of the state attorneys general.
“We brought these suits because we wanted to protect kids and we wanted to reform the platforms,” Mr. Skrmetti said in an interview. Forcing changes to the platforms “is really the most significant part here.”
Every attorney general was familiar with an instance of a child’s facing harm from social media, Mr. Weiser said in an interview. “The shared commitment to do something was rooted in the pain that all of us recognize, the fears that all of us had,” he added.
The talks dragged. But within weeks, Meta received a harsh reminder of the potential problems ahead.
A young woman identified as K.G.M. took the stand at a trial that began in late January, making accusations that social media companies had created features on their platforms like infinite scroll that had led to her anxiety and depression.
The defendants, Meta, Snap, TikTok and YouTube, had argued in pretrial hearings that the case should be scrapped because of Section 230. But the judge, Carolyn B. Kuhl of California Superior Court of Los Angeles County, ruled that the case was about product liability, not speech.
The five-week trial was deeply embarrassing for Meta. Mr. Zuckerberg testified for the first time about child safety in front of a jury. He was grilled about allowing millions of underage users on Instagram. Parents who said their children were harmed by social media packed the courtroom. Internal documents presented as evidence showed Meta’s employees comparing themselves to drug pushers.
Simultaneously, New Mexico’s attorney general was trying a case in state court charging Meta with violating consumer protection laws.
Supporters of K.G.M., the plaintiff in the Los Angeles trial that included testimony from Mr. Zuckerberg. — Frederic J. Brown/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Within two days in March, Meta lost both cases. The decisions raised questions about reputational harm that future trials could inflict.
The stakes were getting higher, as Meta and California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey geared up for trial this summer in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in Oakland. The states had accused Meta of violating consumer protection laws and child privacy protections, seeking roughly $200 billion in penalties and changes to the company’s platforms.
Mr. Skrmetti and nearly all the other states attorney general had also filed their own cases.
But in the ongoing talks, Meta still wasn’t meeting all the states’ demands on safety features.
On the eve of the Oakland trial, Meta made a last-ditch effort to kill the case. The company asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on July 22 to throw out the social media addiction cases, invoking legal protections under Section 230.
As Meta waited for a decision from the Ninth Circuit, Mr. Mahoney trekked to Tennessee with his $19 billion offer. He left without a deal, but talks continued.
On Aug. 10, the appeals court ruled against Meta. Suddenly the talks sped up, four of the people said. With their new leverage, the states began daily negotiations with Meta’s lawyers in person in Nashville and over video calls, to get final concessions, one of the people said.
As part of the deal, the company agreed to more safety measures. The growing list of platform changes included stopping teenage users from endless scrolling, and imposing a two-hour daily limit on use of Instagram and Facebook. Meta also said it would limit teen use between midnight and 6 a.m. and silence notifications during school hours of 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Meta proposed paying more and increasing limits on how much young users could use its platforms if other social media companies, like TikTok and YouTube, agreed to similar controls for their apps — something that Meta said would keep it from being singled out.
The company wanted to avoid going to trial, and had made it a condition that all the states needed to sign on. But on a video call to discuss the proposed settlement on Aug. 11, some state attorneys general asked if the money was enough and how it would be divided, five people with knowledge of the conversations said.
The states came up with an equation to divvy up the fund based on the size of their populations and the individual charges brought against Meta in each case.
The states’ case in Oakland went to trial last week while they were still negotiating with Meta. On Sunday, the Colorado and Tennessee attorneys general presented a final settlement deal to the other states. They emailed the document with instructions to sign by Tuesday at 6 p.m.
That day, Adam Mosseri. the head of Instagram, testified in Oakland. The states’ plan to call Mr. Zuckerberg to testify was looming.
On Tuesday, every state signed except Texas, Florida and New Mexico, ending the trial. New Mexico had already won its case, and Meta settled with Texas on Wednesday for about $1 billion, offering safety guardrails for young users similar to the multistate agreement.
“Section 230 and the First Amendment are not impenetrable shields to holding Meta accountable,” California’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, said in a call with reporters on Wednesday. The states’ settlement shows the limits of the abilities of those laws “to deliver justice and accountability” to “the people, children, families who’ve been harmed by misconduct.”
Mr. Mahoney said in a statement on Wednesday that he was proud of the agreement and the power it gave parents to protect their children.
“But its success depends on all other social media platforms following Meta’s lead,” he said.
Meta still faces thousands of other suits filed by teenagers, families and school districts. The next major personal injury trial is scheduled to be heard in California Superior Court of Los Angeles County in October.
As governments and regulators around the world intensify scrutiny of social media's impact on children, Meta's landmark US settlement marks a major shift in how technology companies may be held accountable for the way their platforms are designed and used.
Meta has agreed to overhaul parts of Instagram and Facebook in the United States and pay up to $18 billion to settle a landmark lawsuit brought by dozens of states that accused the social media giant of deliberately designing its platforms to addict children and exposing young users to serious mental health harms.
The settlement, reached Wednesday, brings a major California trial to an end and marks the first time in the United States that Meta has been forced to change key features of the everyday social media experience as part of a legal agreement.
The deal requires Meta to introduce a series of safeguards for users under 18, including default limits on daily usage, restrictions on nighttime access and changes to how content and notifications are presented to teenagers.
Officials described it as the biggest state consumer-protection settlement outside the tobacco settlements of the 1990s.
The size of the agreement underscores the growing legal pressure facing Meta and the wider social media industry over the impact of online platforms on children.
Meta's payment is more than 12 times the previous highest settlement recorded over the past four years.
That benchmark was set by Meta itself in 2024, when it agreed to pay $1.4 billion to settle a separate case.
The latest agreement also represents the largest settlement ever reached with a single company through the New York attorney general's office.
The previous record was a $7.4 billion settlement reached in 2022 with Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family over the opioid crisis.
The lawsuit alleged that Meta intentionally incorporated addictive features into Instagram and other products while failing to adequately warn the public about potential risks to young users.
The states argued that the company knew its products could contribute to harmful experiences among children but continued to prioritize engagement.
The settlement does not simply impose a financial penalty.
It requires changes to the products themselves, potentially establishing a new template for how technology companies can be held responsible for the design of services used by children.
Under the agreement, Meta will automatically apply several protections to users under 18 on Instagram and Facebook in the US.
The most significant change is a default two-hour daily usage limit. Teenagers will be able to disable the restriction only with permission from a parent.
Meta will also introduce a default Night Mode that blocks access to its applications between midnight and 6 a.m.
During those hours, teenagers will not be able to post or view content through Feed, Stories, Explore or Reels.
The company is also introducing a School Mode feature that will mute notifications by default between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m.
Certain communications will remain accessible. Direct messages and alerts relating to account security or safety will not be blocked under the school-time restrictions.
The changes extend beyond limits on how long teenagers can use the platforms.
Meta said it would also introduce greater controls over algorithmic feeds and autoplay, while users will have options to hide the number of likes and reactions appearing on posts.
The company will also disable cosmetic surgery and extreme makeup filters for teenage users.
Taken together, the measures represent a substantial intervention in the design of Instagram and Facebook, two products whose growth has historically relied heavily on maximizing engagement and keeping users active on their platforms.
Although the agreement applies to Meta's US operations, its significance is unlikely to stop at the country's borders.
Governments around the world are already looking for ways to reduce children's exposure to harmful online content and limit the amount of time young people spend on social media.
Australia has taken the most aggressive approach so far.
It became the first country to introduce a nationwide ban on social media access for children under 16 late last year.
Australian Communications Minister Anika Wells said Meta's latest changes demonstrated that social media companies already have the ability to protect children from potentially addictive features.
Australian Communications Minister Anika Wells said in an email to Reuters that social media companies "have the tools at their disposal to protect young people from their addictive features but have chosen not to use them".
Australian officials said Meta's decision to restrict teenage use of its platforms in the US showed that companies could implement stronger safeguards for young people online.
In the Philippines, an official told Reuters that Meta had also pledged to strengthen protections for young users there.
South Korea's media regulator went further, arguing that some of Meta's new measures should be extended to young users worldwide rather than being limited to individual markets, Reuters reported.
The international response could add pressure on Meta to standardize some of its protections across countries, particularly as governments increasingly coordinate their approaches to children's online safety.
The Meta settlement comes during a particularly difficult year for social media companies.
In the spring, Meta lost two high-profile court cases involving allegations that its products, including Instagram, harmed young users.
Other major platforms, including YouTube, TikTok and Snapchat, have also faced similar litigation, with companies settling some cases while thousands of lawsuits remain pending.
TikTok this week reached a separate $400 million settlement with the US Justice Department over allegations that it illegally collected children's data.
At the same time, US states have been passing their own restrictions on children's social media use.
The regulatory pressure is no longer confined to the US.
Britain, Canada, Denmark, Indonesia and New Zealand have indicated that they intend to follow Australia's lead on restricting social media access for younger users.
France has also pursued restrictions, although a law that would have banned children under 15 from social media was blocked this month on constitutional grounds.
The growing patchwork of regulations could eventually make it more difficult for social media companies to maintain different safety standards in different countries.
The significance of Meta's settlement may extend beyond the specific restrictions imposed on Instagram and Facebook.
Legal proceedings against Meta have brought internal documents and communications involving employees and executives into the public domain.
Those materials could become valuable to researchers, lawmakers and regulators examining how technology companies design products and assess their potential harms.
"There's clearly an enormous momentum shift here in the United States and globally in the public's assessment of social media platforms and the broader tech industry," said Jim Steyer, CEO of Common Sense Media, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization, in an NPR report.
Isabel Sunderland, policy lead for technology reform at Issue One, a bipartisan nonprofit focused on political reform, said the settlement could have a broader impact on lawsuits, legislation and regulation.
She pointed to internal documents and communications that have emerged during the federal trial in Oakland, as well as earlier trials in California and New Mexico state courts this year.
"They're also opening up huge troves, thousands of documents of discovery that is hugely important for researchers, for lawmakers to be able to write better policy, for the public to understand what their relationship to technology looks like, and how technology companies are designing their products," she said in the NPR report.
That evidence could prove particularly important as lawmakers attempt to determine whether existing consumer-protection and privacy laws are sufficient to address the risks associated with algorithm-driven platforms.
"Legally, the settlement does not create a precedent in the way a court decision would. But it will matter in practice. Other states and plaintiffs now have another indication that these cases can survive substantial legal challenges, reach trial, and create very significant financial exposure for Meta," said Daryl Lim, a professor at Penn State Dickinson Law.
One of the most significant pieces of evidence to emerge during the federal trial came from former Meta engineer and whistleblower Arturo Béjar.
Béjar testified that he had been involved in internal studies examining how frequently users encountered harmful content, including bullying, self-harm and violence.
According to his testimony, Meta did not publicly release the results of those studies. Instead, the company published other metrics focused on violations of its content policies.
Béjar argued that those measurements did not capture the extent of harm experienced by users and created "a false impression of safety."
The dispute highlights one of the central issues at the heart of the litigation: whether technology companies' public measurements adequately reflect the risks users face on their platforms.
Sunderland said the evidence surrounding how companies make decisions could prove particularly valuable to lawmakers.
"The decision-making process of the companies has been a huge piece of evidence that we've pulled out from these trials," Sunderland said.
She argued that the information could help lawmakers draft new legislation and give regulators greater insight when responding to technology companies' challenges to laws after they are enacted.
For Meta, the settlement removes the immediate threat of a major trial while imposing significant changes on two of its most important platforms.
The financial cost is substantial, but the longer-term implications could be even more consequential.
The company will have to demonstrate that its new restrictions can be implemented effectively without undermining the broader user experience. It will also face questions over whether similar protections should eventually be extended beyond the US.
For the rest of the technology industry, meanwhile, the settlement offers a warning that regulators and courts are increasingly looking beyond content moderation and data privacy and examining the design of the products themselves.
The case could also encourage other states and countries to pursue similar restrictions and settlements.
Meta's agreement therefore represents more than a costly resolution to one lawsuit. It signals a broader shift in how governments view social media companies and their responsibilities toward younger users.
As regulators gain access to more internal evidence and lawmakers face growing public pressure to act, the industry's long-standing emphasis on engagement could face increasingly stringent limits.
The settlement may ultimately prove to be a turning point — not only for Meta, but for the way governments regulate social media platforms built to keep users coming back.
Silicon Valley's technology leaders have long dreamed of making the world a better place. But now more than ever, Americans say they're living in a tech-induced nightmare.
The rapid rise of artificial intelligence giants like OpenAI and Anthropic has exacerbated a deep malaise toward the tech sector, especially among people who have come to associate AI with job loss and now see outsized data centers rising up in their backyards. The last generation of technology, meanwhile, ushered in a cohort of social media apps that proved so addictive that Meta agreed to fork over up to $17 billion as part of a landmark settlement this week.
At a time of stubbornly high inflation that's pushed consumer confidence to a seven-month low, Americans are looking up to see tech's trillion-dollar companies getting bigger and more powerful, all while being led by some of the wealthiest people on the planet.
"If this technology takes off in the way that you see the CEOs of AI Labs talking about, we're facing a significant impact to our economy, to people's jobs, to their sense of agency," Sarah Myers West, co-executive director of research firm AI Now Institute, told CNBC in an interview. "There are lots of members of the public that don't want to see that vision roll out."
More than half of Americans say they're more concerned than excited about the growing use of AI in daily life, according to a recent report from the Pew Research Center. That's up from 37% in 2021. And in a poll earlier this year, the Searchlight Institute found that the overwhelming majority of voters believe social media has a negative impact on society.
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Confidence in AI executives is even more dismal, according to a CNBC Generation Lab survey of 18- to 34-year-olds. More than 75% of respondents said they don't trust Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei to act responsibly, while around 70% expressed views about OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
The public's mounting disdain for the tech sector could prove especially challenging for Anthropic and OpenAI, both valued at nearly $1 trillion and gearing up for potentially historic IPOs. Those offerings could mint a number of fresh billionaires and scores of millionaires. AI backlash is expected to appear as a key risk factor in Anthropic's IPO prospectus, as CNBC previously reported.
In a post on X earlier this month, Amodei acknowledged that the public has a negative view of AI, and he said Anthropic and other companies will have to deliver on their promises to improve people's lives.
"I think it is fundamentally a crisis of trust," Amodei wrote. "I think that ordinary people don't trust companies, governments, or the tech industry and always suspect that we are cooking up some new way to screw them over. The causes of this go back decades, and AI is just the latest iteration of it."
Experts told CNBC that backlash against the tech sector is reaching new heights, and that the widespread angst is drowning out conversations about its potential benefits, particularly regarding AI. Companies have to go beyond a charm offensive, they say.
"Treating it as a PR problem and a problem of public sentiment would be tremendously misguided," West said. "To improve public sentiment requires really meaningfully contending with where the public is at and what they want in a more meaningful way than just, 'Can we convince you to get on board?'"
'There's not a lot of trust'AI data centers, the large facilities that house the hardware for training and running AI models, have become a particularly sore subject, serving as a physical manifestation of the widespread anger toward AI.
During the first quarter of this year, around $130 billion worth of data center projects were blocked or delayed due to local opposition, according to a report from Data Center Watch. In just three months, that figure neared the roughly $156 billion worth of facilities that were disrupted during all of 2025.
As backlash against the facilities has mounted, groups like the Stop Data Centers Coalition have been pushing for a national moratorium on new projects to give lawmakers and the public time to more closely examine their environmental, societal and economic impacts.
Emily Wurth, organizing director for Food and Water Watch, said data center concerns cut across a number of issues, including water use, higher utility bills, emissions increases, noise pollution and the potential that the facilities are "taking over agricultural land."
In parts of Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania, she said she's seen "hundreds of people showing up to speak out and oppose these projects."
"I think it likely caught companies and legislators by surprise," she said.
The outrage has spilled into the tech workforce. Amazon engineers testified at a Seattle City Council meeting in June, calling for greater government regulation of AI data centers and criticizing the company's use of "dirty energy" at some sites.
"There's not a lot of trust necessarily in the utilities and the regulators, given the higher electricity prices that we've seen over previous years," James Coleman, a professor of law at the University of Minnesota, told CNBC in an interview.
Sentiment isn't universally negative. Jennifer Huddleston, senior fellow in technology policy at the Cato Institute, said in an interview that "many unions are coming out in favor of data centers, not only because of the initial construction boom, but also the electricians and HVAC" professionals that are in demand "once they're built."
The so-called hyperscalers responsible for much of the building boom say they're responding to insatiable demand from businesses and consumers for their services, many of which are enabling critical advancements in areas like medical research and precision farming.
Even so, opposition to data centers has become a major flashpoint in this year's midterm elections, which are just two months away. Both Democratic and Republican hopefuls have spoken out against the facilities during their campaigns.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee, or NRSC, warned that data centers have become a "sleeper issue" for the entire midterm election cycle, according to a memo obtained by CNBC earlier this month.
Social media in the spotlightJim Steyer, CEO of the nonprofit Common Sense Media, said bipartisan opposition to tech extends well beyond just data centers. He said Americans are "fed up" with the behavior of several big tech companies.
"There is genuinely a techlash, and it's not partisan at all," Steyer, whose brother Tom was a Democratic candidate for governor in California, told CNBC in an interview. "It doesn't matter if you're liberal or conservative, or you vote for Republicans or Democrats, or what part of the country you live in. It's everywhere."
The lawsuit that Meta settled this week was brought by a bipartisan coalition of state attorneys general, who argued that Meta endangered children and teens with its social media apps like Instagram and Facebook. As part of the settlement, the company agreed to make substantial changes to its products in addition to paying billions of dollars in penalties.
Meta agreed to impose changes including a default two-hour daily time limit for teens across Facebook and Instagram, muted notifications during school hours, and enhanced parental controls, with more updates potentially on the horizon.
"It's a floor conceptually, not a ceiling," California AG Rob Bonta, who co-led the case, said at a news conference on Wednesday.
Steyer described the settlement as an overdue but "well-deserved victory" that reflects broad public sentiment. He added that the antipathy towards tech is the most intense it's been since he founded Common Sense more than 20 years ago.
It's a "qualitatively different moment in terms of the backlash," Steyer said. "If I were running one of the big companies, I would be very aware of that."
Then there's the matter of surveillance, and Atlanta startup Flock Safety.
Flock's technology, which photographs every passing license plate and uses AI to extract data, has been installed across thousands of American cities and towns. Critics say police have used the cameras to stalk women or wrongfully accuse people of crimes.
Ahead of the midterms, politicians on both sides of the aisle have called for greater regulation. Abdul El-Sayed, the progressive Democrat running for U.S. Senate in Michigan, posted a video on X earlier this month accusing his Republican counterpart, Mike Rogers, of enabling their proliferation.
Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose term ends in January, said this week the systems were "out of control." President Donald Trump said his stance on the cameras is "under review."
More than 90 cities have deactivated, rejected or canceled Flock contracts so far this year, according to DeFlock, an advocacy group that tracks the rollout of Flock systems.
A Flock spokesperson said the company has found new city partnerships have outpaced nonrenewals by about "10 to one." Flock welcomes regulation of automated license plate reader technology, and it's rolled out features to flag abnormal search activity in its systems, the spokesperson added.
"We know from our data and from customers that we hear from every day that there is wide support for ALPR technology to deter and solve crime with appropriate safeguards in place that protect privacy and provide objective evidence," Flock's spokesperson said in a statement.
Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union, said the fallout around Flock "folds neatly" into the resentment toward AI, data centers and the power of tech billionaires.
"I think there is a long-term grassroots bipartisan suspicion of this kind of surveillance," he said.
—CNBC's Annie Palmer and CJ Haddad contributed to this report
Meta's child safety settlement includes new protections for young users and is increasing pressure on other social media platforms to adopt similar safeguards. UK House of Lords National Security Strategy Committee member and Online Safety Activist Baroness Beeban Kidron is on Bloomberg This Weekend and says the bigger impact may come from forcing technology companies to take greater responsibility for product design and age verification, rather than relying on children and parents to protect themselves.
Meta is quietly testing robots inside its data centers, and at least one employee believes physical workers are no longer safe from automation. The experiment hints at a much larger shift in how AI spending could reshape labor costs across…
Artificial intelligence was supposed to make workers more productive. Instead, companies are increasingly discovering that the most productive worker can be one they don’t have to employ. U.S. technology companies have eliminated nearly 140,000 jobs in 2026, according to a Financial Times analysis, even as the industry’s AI spending reaches unprecedented levels.
Not every layoff can be blamed on AI — companies are also correcting pandemic-era excesses and cutting costs. But the direction of travel is difficult to miss. Now automation is moving beyond computer screens and into the physical world.
Meta’s Robots Are Coming for Data Center Jobs Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META | META Price Prediction) is already spending billions to build the infrastructure needed for its AI ambitions. Now it is exploring whether robots can help operate that infrastructure with fewer people.
According to a report from WIRED, Meta is testing robots that can swap networking cables, power-cycle servers, reseat hardware, and perform other tasks traditionally handled by data center technicians. The company is testing equipment from Watney Robotics, Kinova, and ABB at facilities including Altoona, Iowa, and New Albany, Ohio.
One Meta worker told WIRED that a successful cable-swapping robot could eventually replace up to 80% of some technicians’ workloads, according to one data center worker:
“We thought those of us performing the physical tasks were safe for a while, but not anymore. It’s coming for us all, unfortunately.”
The robots remain slower than humans in some applications, require supervision and battery charging, and struggle with complicated cabling. Still, the experiment matters because it attacks a cost that is becoming enormous as Meta expands its data center footprint.
Meta’s second-quarter 2026 results show just how much money is moving into that infrastructure. Revenue rose 28% year over year to $60.8 billion, while capital expenditures reached $31.1 billion in the quarter. The company now expects $130 billion to $145 billion of capital expenditures in 2026.
The most productive worker is the one you never have to hire. Automation has officially left the screen and entered the physical world, targeting a massive shift in the global workforce. AI Is Already Changing the Workforce. The Financial Times found that U.S. technology companies had gutted 140,000 jobs during 2026. Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Oracle (NYSE:ORCL), Meta, and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) accounted for almost 50,000 of those reductions. But the FT also cautioned that AI isn’t responsible for every job eliminated. Companies are restructuring, correcting previous overhiring, and redirecting spending toward AI infrastructure.
That’s an important distinction for investors. The bullish case for AI has always been that productivity gains will create new industries and new jobs, just as previous technological revolutions did. That could still happen. AI-focused companies such as Anthropic and OpenAI are hiring, while Meta itself shifted thousands of employees toward AI-related work even as it reduced its overall workforce.
But AI has one unusual characteristic: speed and scalability. Software can replace tasks performed by thousands of people almost instantly once it works. Robotics could eventually do the same thing in the physical economy.
The $1.7 Trillion Opportunity Citizens Bank estimates that Tesla‘s (NASDAQ:TSLA) Optimus humanoid robot could eventually target roughly $1.7 trillion of U.S. wages. That’s not a forecast for Tesla’s revenue, and much of that potential market remains years away. But it illustrates why investors are paying attention to physical AI.
The economic incentive is straightforward. If a robot can work around the clock, doesn’t require benefits, and performs repetitive tasks consistently, its value isn’t merely that it replaces a worker. It changes the economics of the entire operation.
For Meta, that could eventually mean fewer technicians supporting vastly larger data centers. For Tesla, it could mean a new manufacturing and robotics business. For investors, it creates another way to measure AI’s potential: not just how much revenue it generates, but how much labor it can eliminate per dollar of capital invested.
Key Takeaway In short, investors shouldn’t interpret Meta’s robot experiments as proof that data center technicians are about to disappear. The technology isn’t there yet.
The more important signal is that AI automation is moving from white-collar software work to physical labor. Meta’s 2026 capital-spending budget shows how aggressively the company is building AI infrastructure, and robots could eventually help it operate that infrastructure more efficiently.
That makes the long-term thesis for Meta more compelling — but also changes the way investors should think about AI. The biggest gains may not come from selling AI products. They may come from using AI to require fewer humans to produce the same output.
That’s a much bigger productivity story. And, potentially, a much bigger margin story.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Meta Platforms (META +1.21%) is one of the companies leading the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution, but in recent months, investors haven't exactly flocked to this tech leader. The stock has slipped about 13% this year, and a recent lawsuit brought by several states didn't help matters.
But the case, alleging that Meta's apps have been harmful to children, no longer represents an uncertainty for the company or its shareholders. Only days after the opening arguments, Meta agreed to pay $16.7 billion to settle the case. Now, here's my prediction of where the stock will go from here.
Image source: Getty Images.
Before looking into the future, though, let's consider the Meta story so far. Most of us are familiar with Meta thanks to its social media leadership -- the company owns the world-famous Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp. About 3.6 billion people use at least one of these every day. And this fact is what's driven advertisers to Meta to promote their products and services, creating a billion-dollar business.
Ads drive revenue at Meta, and this revenue is booming. In the recent quarter, it climbed 28% to $60 billion. All of this has helped the company invest in another area that it sees as a future growth driver, and that's AI.
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Meta has rolled out AI features across its apps and offers an AI assistant to users -- the idea here is that this will keep us on the apps longer, and advertisers will pour more and more advertising dollars into Meta to reach us. Meanwhile, Meta aims to use AI to improve ad results, and this is something else that should appeal to advertisers. Finally, Meta's investment in AI could produce additional products and services over time.
This is positive, but Meta has still faced certain headwinds. Some investors have worried that the AI revenue opportunity may not justify current spending levels. In the latest quarter alone, the company's capital expenditures surpassed $31 billion, driven by infrastructure investments.
The federal lawsuit against Meta also may have weighed on some investors' minds as it represented an element of uncertainty -- and a threat to revenue growth. Settling the suit allowed Meta and the states to agree on changes to protect children, such as blocking nighttime usage. But the agreement doesn't order Meta to halt certain features such as targeted ads.
A manageable settlementMeta faces other unrelated lawsuits, but the settlement of this federal case can still be seen as lowering risk. And the size of the settlement is largely manageable for Meta, a company that generated $200 billion in revenue in the latest full year and that boasts a market value of $1.4 trillion.
Now, let's consider my prediction for the stock. Meta's lackluster stock market performance this year has left the shares trading at 18x forward earnings estimates. This is dirt cheap considering Meta's solid social media moat -- people generally won't switch out of Instagram or WhatsApp since all of their contacts are unlikely to follow -- and ad revenue strength. Meta also offers investors the potential to benefit from AI growth down the road, and this is as the company steadily grows earnings thanks to its social media business.
This makes Meta a fantastic buy right now, particularly for tech investors who have benefited from investments in other AI stocks and are looking to shift into future potential winners. Still, Meta may not take off immediately, as some investors focus on AI spending in general and wait to see whether it translates into revenue growth.
But my prediction is that Meta stock will gradually head higher from these levels over the coming year and into the future -- and that makes it a fantastic stock to buy right now while it's cheap and hold onto for the long term as the AI story develops.
Carnegie Investment Counsel lessened its position in shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META – Free Report) by 12.7% during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The firm owned 142,799 shares of the social networking company’s stock after selling 20,867 shares during the quarter. Meta Platforms makes up 1.6% of Carnegie Investment Counsel’s holdings, making the stock its 13th biggest position. Carnegie Investment Counsel’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $78,260,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.
Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Lebenthal Global Advisors LLC raised its position in shares of Meta Platforms by 2.7% in the second quarter. Lebenthal Global Advisors LLC now owns 7,971 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $4,490,000 after acquiring an additional 209 shares during the period. Welch & Forbes LLC boosted its stake in shares of Meta Platforms by 11.0% during the 2nd quarter. Welch & Forbes LLC now owns 148,710 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $83,767,000 after acquiring an additional 14,741 shares in the last quarter. Milford Funds Ltd. grew its position in shares of Meta Platforms by 49.2% during the 2nd quarter. Milford Funds Ltd. now owns 336,824 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $189,730,000 after acquiring an additional 111,144 shares during the period. Byrne Financial Freedom LLC grew its position in shares of Meta Platforms by 39.8% during the 2nd quarter. Byrne Financial Freedom LLC now owns 8,886 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $5,005,000 after acquiring an additional 2,528 shares during the period. Finally, Elevated Private Wealth LLC purchased a new position in shares of Meta Platforms in the 2nd quarter valued at about $1,566,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 79.91% of the company’s stock.
Insider Activity at Meta Platforms In related news, CFO Susan J. Li sold 9,196 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, August 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $550.61, for a total transaction of $5,063,409.56. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer owned 13,186 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $7,260,343.46. This represents a 41.09% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, insider Curtis J. Mahoney sold 1,559 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $558.00, for a total transaction of $869,922.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider directly owned 1,957 shares in the company, valued at $1,092,006. This trade represents a 44.34% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders have sold a total of 34,957 shares of company stock worth $20,442,696 over the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 13.53% of the company’s stock.
Analysts Set New Price Targets A number of equities analysts recently weighed in on META shares. Guggenheim reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $800.00 price target on shares of Meta Platforms in a report on Tuesday, July 28th. The Goldman Sachs Group cut their price objective on Meta Platforms from $815.00 to $725.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, July 30th. Citigroup reduced their target price on Meta Platforms from $850.00 to $800.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, July 30th. Erste Group Bank upgraded Meta Platforms from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 7th. Finally, Robert W. Baird dropped their price target on shares of Meta Platforms from $830.00 to $750.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, July 30th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-four have issued a Buy rating and nine have given a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Meta Platforms presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $785.22. Check Out Our Latest Research Report on META
Meta Platforms Stock Performance NASDAQ META opened at $578.02 on Friday. The company has a market cap of $1.47 trillion, a PE ratio of 21.77, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.99 and a beta of 1.25. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $592.28 and its 200-day simple moving average is $611.61. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a 1-year low of $520.26 and a 1-year high of $790.80. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32, a current ratio of 2.23 and a quick ratio of 2.23.
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META – Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 29th. The social networking company reported $6.18 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $7.19 by ($1.01). Meta Platforms had a return on equity of 33.18% and a net margin of 29.83%.The firm had revenue of $60.80 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $60.22 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $7.14 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 28.0% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 28.17 EPS for the current fiscal year.
Key Stories Impacting Meta Platforms Here are the key news stories impacting Meta Platforms this week:
Positive Sentiment: The settlement limits litigation risk by resolving claims from a broad coalition of states without an admission of liability. Analysts view the payment as manageable relative to Meta’s revenue and cash generation, while the company avoids potentially disruptive court-ordered changes to products such as Reels, Stories and its recommendation systems. Meta’s social media settlement leaves its money machine unscathed Positive Sentiment: Meta’s advertising engine continues to benefit from improved ad-ranking technology and growing advertiser use of artificial intelligence to create campaigns, supporting demand even as the company spends heavily on AI infrastructure. Ca$htag$: Meta’s AI Bet Not Showing Returns, Yet Positive Sentiment: Rosenblatt raised its price target to $886 and maintained a buy rating, pointing to substantial potential upside from current levels. The stock’s valuation also remains below that of many large technology peers, strengthening the bargain argument for some investors. Meta price target raised by Rosenblatt Neutral Sentiment: The new teen safeguards—including time limits, muted notifications and stronger parental controls—could become a regulatory template for TikTok, YouTube, Snap and international markets. This creates industrywide compliance costs, but may also give Meta greater legal clarity. Meta settlement puts social media industry on notice Negative Sentiment: Investors still face execution and financial risks: age-verification technology may be unreliable, critics say the protections do not address teen mental-health concerns, and regulators in the U.K., South Korea and elsewhere may demand similar measures. Restrictions could eventually reduce teen engagement and advertising opportunities. Meta’s child-safety deal and age verification Negative Sentiment: Meta’s substantial AI capital spending has not yet produced a proportionate revenue payoff, while an executive overseeing India and Southeast Asia is leaving for OpenAI. Those developments add to concerns about returns on investment and management stability. Meta executive leaves for OpenAI Meta Platforms Company Profile (Free Report)
Meta Platforms, Inc (NASDAQ: META), formerly Facebook, Inc, is a global technology company best known for building social networking services and immersive computing platforms. Founded in 2004 and headquartered in Menlo Park, California, the company operates a family of consumer-facing products and services that connect users, creators and businesses. In October 2021 the company rebranded as Meta to reflect an expanded strategic focus on augmented and virtual reality technologies alongside its social media businesses.
Meta’s core consumer products include Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, which enable social networking, messaging, content sharing and community building across mobile and desktop devices.
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Collaborative Fund Advisors LLC raised its holdings in Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META – Free Report) by 93.5% during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 3,295 shares of the social networking company’s stock after purchasing an additional 1,592 shares during the quarter. Meta Platforms accounts for approximately 1.1% of Collaborative Fund Advisors LLC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 21st biggest holding. Collaborative Fund Advisors LLC’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $1,856,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.
A number of other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of META. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in Meta Platforms by 3.8% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 199,995,630 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $132,015,115,000 after acquiring an additional 7,269,279 shares during the period. Auto Owners Insurance Co lifted its holdings in Meta Platforms by 76,587.7% in the fourth quarter. Auto Owners Insurance Co now owns 105,292,277 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $69,502,379,000 after acquiring an additional 105,154,977 shares during the period. State Street Corp boosted its position in Meta Platforms by 5.1% in the 4th quarter. State Street Corp now owns 90,841,345 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $59,963,463,000 after purchasing an additional 4,395,763 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its position in Meta Platforms by 1.7% in the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 52,806,712 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $34,734,628,000 after purchasing an additional 878,396 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Capital World Investors grew its stake in shares of Meta Platforms by 0.8% during the 4th quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 39,558,637 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $26,112,735,000 after purchasing an additional 310,947 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 79.91% of the company’s stock.
Meta Platforms Trading Up 1.2% Shares of NASDAQ:META opened at $578.02 on Friday. The business’s 50 day moving average price is $592.28 and its 200-day moving average price is $611.61. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a 1 year low of $520.26 and a 1 year high of $790.80. The firm has a market capitalization of $1.47 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.77, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.99 and a beta of 1.25. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32, a current ratio of 2.23 and a quick ratio of 2.23.
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META – Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 29th. The social networking company reported $6.18 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $7.19 by ($1.01). The company had revenue of $60.80 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $60.22 billion. Meta Platforms had a return on equity of 33.18% and a net margin of 29.83%.Meta Platforms’s revenue was up 28.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $7.14 EPS. On average, equities research analysts forecast that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 28.17 earnings per share for the current fiscal year. Meta Platforms News Summary Here are the key news stories impacting Meta Platforms this week:
Positive Sentiment: The settlement limits litigation risk by resolving claims from a broad coalition of states without an admission of liability. Analysts view the payment as manageable relative to Meta’s revenue and cash generation, while the company avoids potentially disruptive court-ordered changes to products such as Reels, Stories and its recommendation systems. Meta’s social media settlement leaves its money machine unscathed Positive Sentiment: Meta’s advertising engine continues to benefit from improved ad-ranking technology and growing advertiser use of artificial intelligence to create campaigns, supporting demand even as the company spends heavily on AI infrastructure. Ca$htag$: Meta’s AI Bet Not Showing Returns, Yet Positive Sentiment: Rosenblatt raised its price target to $886 and maintained a buy rating, pointing to substantial potential upside from current levels. The stock’s valuation also remains below that of many large technology peers, strengthening the bargain argument for some investors. Meta price target raised by Rosenblatt Neutral Sentiment: The new teen safeguards—including time limits, muted notifications and stronger parental controls—could become a regulatory template for TikTok, YouTube, Snap and international markets. This creates industrywide compliance costs, but may also give Meta greater legal clarity. Meta settlement puts social media industry on notice Negative Sentiment: Investors still face execution and financial risks: age-verification technology may be unreliable, critics say the protections do not address teen mental-health concerns, and regulators in the U.K., South Korea and elsewhere may demand similar measures. Restrictions could eventually reduce teen engagement and advertising opportunities. Meta’s child-safety deal and age verification Negative Sentiment: Meta’s substantial AI capital spending has not yet produced a proportionate revenue payoff, while an executive overseeing India and Southeast Asia is leaving for OpenAI. Those developments add to concerns about returns on investment and management stability. Meta executive leaves for OpenAI Wall Street Analyst Weigh In Several research firms have recently weighed in on META. KeyCorp cut their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $790.00 to $780.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, July 30th. Guggenheim reissued a “buy” rating and set a $800.00 price target on shares of Meta Platforms in a report on Tuesday, July 28th. Citigroup dropped their price target on shares of Meta Platforms from $850.00 to $800.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, July 30th. Benchmark reaffirmed a “hold” rating on shares of Meta Platforms in a report on Thursday. Finally, Sanford C. Bernstein reiterated an “outperform” rating and issued a $800.00 price objective on shares of Meta Platforms in a research report on Thursday, July 30th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-four have assigned a Buy rating and nine have given a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $785.22.
Get Our Latest Research Report on META
Insiders Place Their Bets In other news, CTO Andrew Bosworth sold 7,848 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, August 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $558.00, for a total transaction of $4,379,184.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief technology officer owned 828 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $462,024. The trade was a 90.46% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, COO Javier Olivan sold 1,258 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $600.00, for a total transaction of $754,800.00. Following the transaction, the chief operating officer owned 1,517 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $910,200. This trade represents a 45.33% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 34,957 shares of company stock valued at $20,442,696. 13.53% of the stock is owned by company insiders.
Meta Platforms Company Profile (Free Report)
Meta Platforms, Inc (NASDAQ: META), formerly Facebook, Inc, is a global technology company best known for building social networking services and immersive computing platforms. Founded in 2004 and headquartered in Menlo Park, California, the company operates a family of consumer-facing products and services that connect users, creators and businesses. In October 2021 the company rebranded as Meta to reflect an expanded strategic focus on augmented and virtual reality technologies alongside its social media businesses.
Meta’s core consumer products include Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, which enable social networking, messaging, content sharing and community building across mobile and desktop devices.
Read More Five stocks we like better than Meta Platforms From SaaS-pocalypse to Perfect Storm: Workday’s AI Growth Story Strengthens These 3 GARP Stocks Show Why Growth and Value Do Not Have to Clash Venture Into High-Volatility Corners of the Market With These 3 ETFs 3 Retail Stocks to Watch After a Big Consumer Earnings Week
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Elevated Private Wealth LLC purchased a new position in Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META – Free Report) in the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund purchased 2,779 shares of the social networking company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,566,000. Meta Platforms makes up about 1.5% of Elevated Private Wealth LLC’s portfolio, making the stock its 24th largest holding.
A number of other large investors have also modified their holdings of the stock. RHL Group LLC purchased a new stake in Meta Platforms during the 4th quarter worth about $28,000. Strategic Wealth Advisors LLC purchased a new position in shares of Meta Platforms in the 4th quarter valued at about $29,000. Advantage Trust Co purchased a new position in shares of Meta Platforms in the 2nd quarter valued at about $28,000. Axiom Investment Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Meta Platforms during the first quarter worth about $36,000. Finally, Safe Harbor Fiduciary LLC acquired a new position in shares of Meta Platforms during the fourth quarter worth about $42,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 79.91% of the company’s stock.
Key Headlines Impacting Meta Platforms Here are the key news stories impacting Meta Platforms this week:
Positive Sentiment: The settlement limits litigation risk by resolving claims from a broad coalition of states without an admission of liability. Analysts view the payment as manageable relative to Meta’s revenue and cash generation, while the company avoids potentially disruptive court-ordered changes to products such as Reels, Stories and its recommendation systems. Meta’s social media settlement leaves its money machine unscathed Positive Sentiment: Meta’s advertising engine continues to benefit from improved ad-ranking technology and growing advertiser use of artificial intelligence to create campaigns, supporting demand even as the company spends heavily on AI infrastructure. Ca$htag$: Meta’s AI Bet Not Showing Returns, Yet Positive Sentiment: Rosenblatt raised its price target to $886 and maintained a buy rating, pointing to substantial potential upside from current levels. The stock’s valuation also remains below that of many large technology peers, strengthening the bargain argument for some investors. Meta price target raised by Rosenblatt Neutral Sentiment: The new teen safeguards—including time limits, muted notifications and stronger parental controls—could become a regulatory template for TikTok, YouTube, Snap and international markets. This creates industrywide compliance costs, but may also give Meta greater legal clarity. Meta settlement puts social media industry on notice Negative Sentiment: Investors still face execution and financial risks: age-verification technology may be unreliable, critics say the protections do not address teen mental-health concerns, and regulators in the U.K., South Korea and elsewhere may demand similar measures. Restrictions could eventually reduce teen engagement and advertising opportunities. Meta’s child-safety deal and age verification Negative Sentiment: Meta’s substantial AI capital spending has not yet produced a proportionate revenue payoff, while an executive overseeing India and Southeast Asia is leaving for OpenAI. Those developments add to concerns about returns on investment and management stability. Meta executive leaves for OpenAI Meta Platforms Stock Performance Shares of META stock opened at $578.02 on Friday. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $592.28 and its two-hundred day moving average is $611.61. The firm has a market cap of $1.47 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.77, a PEG ratio of 0.99 and a beta of 1.25. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a 1 year low of $520.26 and a 1 year high of $790.80. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32, a quick ratio of 2.23 and a current ratio of 2.23. Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META – Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, July 29th. The social networking company reported $6.18 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $7.19 by ($1.01). Meta Platforms had a return on equity of 33.18% and a net margin of 29.83%.The firm had revenue of $60.80 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $60.22 billion. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $7.14 EPS. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 28.0% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts predict that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 28.17 earnings per share for the current year.
Analyst Ratings Changes Several brokerages recently weighed in on META. Mizuho set a $750.00 target price on shares of Meta Platforms in a report on Thursday, July 30th. Truist Financial lowered their price target on shares of Meta Platforms from $770.00 to $763.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Thursday. Citizens Jmp dropped their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $800.00 to $770.00 and set a “market outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, July 30th. Benchmark restated a “hold” rating on shares of Meta Platforms in a report on Thursday. Finally, Rosenblatt Securities lifted their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $883.00 to $886.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday. Four analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-four have assigned a Buy rating and nine have given a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $785.22.
Check Out Our Latest Stock Analysis on META
Insider Transactions at Meta Platforms In related news, CTO Andrew Bosworth sold 7,848 shares of the stock in a transaction on Tuesday, August 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $558.00, for a total transaction of $4,379,184.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief technology officer owned 828 shares in the company, valued at $462,024. This represents a 90.46% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, COO Javier Olivan sold 1,258 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, August 10th. The stock was sold at an average price of $600.00, for a total transaction of $754,800.00. Following the transaction, the chief operating officer directly owned 1,517 shares in the company, valued at $910,200. The trade was a 45.33% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders have sold 34,957 shares of company stock worth $20,442,696 over the last 90 days. Company insiders own 13.53% of the company’s stock.
About Meta Platforms (Free Report)
Meta Platforms, Inc (NASDAQ: META), formerly Facebook, Inc, is a global technology company best known for building social networking services and immersive computing platforms. Founded in 2004 and headquartered in Menlo Park, California, the company operates a family of consumer-facing products and services that connect users, creators and businesses. In October 2021 the company rebranded as Meta to reflect an expanded strategic focus on augmented and virtual reality technologies alongside its social media businesses.
Meta’s core consumer products include Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, which enable social networking, messaging, content sharing and community building across mobile and desktop devices.
Featured Articles Five stocks we like better than Meta Platforms From SaaS-pocalypse to Perfect Storm: Workday’s AI Growth Story Strengthens These 3 GARP Stocks Show Why Growth and Value Do Not Have to Clash Venture Into High-Volatility Corners of the Market With These 3 ETFs 3 Retail Stocks to Watch After a Big Consumer Earnings Week
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Byrne Financial Freedom LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META – Free Report) by 39.8% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 8,886 shares of the social networking company’s stock after purchasing an additional 2,528 shares during the period. Meta Platforms comprises 2.0% of Byrne Financial Freedom LLC’s portfolio, making the stock its 20th biggest holding. Byrne Financial Freedom LLC’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $5,005,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.
Several other large investors also recently modified their holdings of the stock. Auto Owners Insurance Co lifted its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms by 76,587.7% during the fourth quarter. Auto Owners Insurance Co now owns 105,292,277 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $69,502,379,000 after acquiring an additional 105,154,977 shares during the period. Norges Bank bought a new position in Meta Platforms during the 4th quarter valued at about $22,152,075,000. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in Meta Platforms by 3.8% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 199,995,630 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $132,015,115,000 after buying an additional 7,269,279 shares in the last quarter. Corient Private Wealth LLC boosted its position in Meta Platforms by 488.1% in the fourth quarter. Corient Private Wealth LLC now owns 5,466,595 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $3,608,445,000 after buying an additional 4,537,076 shares in the last quarter. Finally, State Street Corp grew its stake in Meta Platforms by 5.1% during the fourth quarter. State Street Corp now owns 90,841,345 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $59,963,463,000 after buying an additional 4,395,763 shares during the last quarter. 79.91% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.
Key Meta Platforms News Here are the key news stories impacting Meta Platforms this week:
Positive Sentiment: The settlement limits litigation risk by resolving claims from a broad coalition of states without an admission of liability. Analysts view the payment as manageable relative to Meta’s revenue and cash generation, while the company avoids potentially disruptive court-ordered changes to products such as Reels, Stories and its recommendation systems. Meta’s social media settlement leaves its money machine unscathed Positive Sentiment: Meta’s advertising engine continues to benefit from improved ad-ranking technology and growing advertiser use of artificial intelligence to create campaigns, supporting demand even as the company spends heavily on AI infrastructure. Ca$htag$: Meta’s AI Bet Not Showing Returns, Yet Positive Sentiment: Rosenblatt raised its price target to $886 and maintained a buy rating, pointing to substantial potential upside from current levels. The stock’s valuation also remains below that of many large technology peers, strengthening the bargain argument for some investors. Meta price target raised by Rosenblatt Neutral Sentiment: The new teen safeguards—including time limits, muted notifications and stronger parental controls—could become a regulatory template for TikTok, YouTube, Snap and international markets. This creates industrywide compliance costs, but may also give Meta greater legal clarity. Meta settlement puts social media industry on notice Negative Sentiment: Investors still face execution and financial risks: age-verification technology may be unreliable, critics say the protections do not address teen mental-health concerns, and regulators in the U.K., South Korea and elsewhere may demand similar measures. Restrictions could eventually reduce teen engagement and advertising opportunities. Meta’s child-safety deal and age verification Negative Sentiment: Meta’s substantial AI capital spending has not yet produced a proportionate revenue payoff, while an executive overseeing India and Southeast Asia is leaving for OpenAI. Those developments add to concerns about returns on investment and management stability. Meta executive leaves for OpenAI Insider Activity at Meta Platforms In other Meta Platforms news, CTO Andrew Bosworth sold 7,848 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, August 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $558.00, for a total value of $4,379,184.00. Following the transaction, the chief technology officer owned 828 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $462,024. This represents a 90.46% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, Director Robert M. Kimmitt sold 500 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, August 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $561.56, for a total value of $280,780.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 2,943 shares in the company, valued at $1,652,671.08. The trade was a 14.52% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. In the last ninety days, insiders have sold 34,957 shares of company stock worth $20,442,696. 13.53% of the stock is owned by company insiders. Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth A number of research firms have recently issued reports on META. Needham & Company LLC reiterated a “hold” rating on shares of Meta Platforms in a research note on Thursday. Guggenheim restated a “buy” rating and set a $800.00 price target on shares of Meta Platforms in a research report on Tuesday, July 28th. Mizuho set a $750.00 price objective on Meta Platforms in a research report on Thursday, July 30th. KeyCorp lowered their target price on Meta Platforms from $790.00 to $780.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, July 30th. Finally, Wall Street Zen cut Meta Platforms from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Saturday, May 16th. Four equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-four have given a Buy rating and nine have issued a Hold rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $785.22.
Check Out Our Latest Stock Analysis on Meta Platforms
Meta Platforms Price Performance Meta Platforms stock opened at $578.02 on Friday. The company has a quick ratio of 2.23, a current ratio of 2.23 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a 12-month low of $520.26 and a 12-month high of $790.80. The stock has a market cap of $1.47 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.77, a P/E/G ratio of 0.99 and a beta of 1.25. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $592.28 and its 200 day simple moving average is $611.61.
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META – Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 29th. The social networking company reported $6.18 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $7.19 by ($1.01). Meta Platforms had a return on equity of 33.18% and a net margin of 29.83%.The business had revenue of $60.80 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $60.22 billion. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned $7.14 EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 28.0% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 28.17 earnings per share for the current year.
Meta Platforms Profile (Free Report)
Meta Platforms, Inc (NASDAQ: META), formerly Facebook, Inc, is a global technology company best known for building social networking services and immersive computing platforms. Founded in 2004 and headquartered in Menlo Park, California, the company operates a family of consumer-facing products and services that connect users, creators and businesses. In October 2021 the company rebranded as Meta to reflect an expanded strategic focus on augmented and virtual reality technologies alongside its social media businesses.
Meta’s core consumer products include Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, which enable social networking, messaging, content sharing and community building across mobile and desktop devices.
Featured Articles Five stocks we like better than Meta Platforms From SaaS-pocalypse to Perfect Storm: Workday’s AI Growth Story Strengthens These 3 GARP Stocks Show Why Growth and Value Do Not Have to Clash Venture Into High-Volatility Corners of the Market With These 3 ETFs 3 Retail Stocks to Watch After a Big Consumer Earnings Week
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As a central figure who helped negotiate the blockbuster $246 billion tobacco master settlement in 1998, Mike Moore sees the writing on the wall for Meta and its social media rivals like TikTok and Google's YouTube.
Moore was the Mississippi attorney general leading the charge against Big Tobacco. He's long since retired from public office, but is using his experience to help inform state AGs in the crafting of a potential sweeping settlement with the social media industry, which has been similarly accused of knowingly fostering addiction and harming America's youth.
Meta this week agreed to pay almost $17 billion in a landmark settlement with a coalition of state AGs that had sued the company for misrepresenting the extent of child mental health damage caused by Facebook and Instagram. It's by far the biggest deal yet in the massive litigation wave facing social media companies, but experts say the matter is far from over as a bundle of cases remain open.
As co-leader of Attention Initiative, a newly created nonprofit, Moore told CNBC he sees the opportunity for a grand settlement that involves a wider swath of companies and impactful remedies, including a permanent national public education fund to "reduce the number of young people who fall prey to the addiction and the many harms it has caused."
Meta agreed to changes including daily usage limits and "nighttime blocks" for teenagers who use the company's apps, "enhanced age assurance measures" that would prevent children from using them, and the creation of additional tools for parents and guardians. An independent auditor will monitor and report on whether Meta is complying with the settlement's terms over a five-year period.
"The settlement with the states is a great first step in helping protect our children from the dangers on social media," Moore said, in his first public comments on the matter. "The attorneys general have done a great job with their investigations and lawsuits in exposing the bad practices of Meta and the social media industry and now providing a template of corrective actions the industry must take."
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While Moore sees major parallels to the tobacco battle almost three decades ago, the universe of Big Tech and social media presents an array of challenges that may limit the viability of the old playbook. Unlike tobacco, a static product with no real defensible qualities outside of recreation, consumer technology is ever evolving, and the lines between harmfully addictive and beneficial to society can be extremely blurry.
"Cigarettes are cigarettes," said Jonathan Caulkins, a professor of public policy at Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College. By contrast, he said there are stark differences between apps like Facebook and TikTok and, "in the world of AI and social media, it is simply impossible to know what those technologies are going to be doing for good and ill five and 10 and 15 years into the future."
Caulkins said he's not convinced that a "single settlement" can resolve all the alleged health-related concerns, given the rapid advancements in technology.
Still, Moore said it's important to develop proposed settlement language to ensure that litigators are going after the most significant fixes. In his view, that includes a public education fund, though there are dozens of states along with cities, counties and school districts that will all be pursuing various remedies.
The Attention Initiative's goal, he said, is to "make sure everybody hears loud and clear" that "we need a remediation public education program, prevention program, whatever you might want to call it."
"It's best done on a national scale rather than piece by piece, city by city, county by county, state by state, which just wastes a lot of money," he said.
The Meta settlement came just over a week into a federal trial in Oakland, California, that was co-led on the plaintiff side by California AG Rob Bonta. The case was brought in 2023, and accused Meta of violating federal and state laws, including the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA, and various consumer protection statutes.
After the agreement was announced, Bonta called it, "a floor conceptually, not a ceiling," and said it "gives notice to others in the industry that we're not done, and we expect similar outcomes from them as well."
Meta didn't comment on whether a bigger settlement is in the works to clear its remaining legal hurdles. The company made clear in its statement after the announcement that part of its payout is contingent on YouTube and TikTok implementing similar changes to their services.
Google and TikTok didn't respond to requests for comment. Snap, which also faces a number of lawsuits, declined to comment.
Assuming 'nothing will change'The Attention Initiative was created by 22-year-old Josh Jacobs. He modeled the Colorado nonprofit in part after the public health group Truth Initiative, which was started as part of the tobacco settlement and is chaired by Moore.
Jacobs previously co-founded an online ad and e-commerce startup with college friends and became disenchanted with what he characterized as the social media industry's "perverse incentives of maximizing for engagement over all else."
He started researching the similarities between social media and tobacco, an endeavor that led to him cold-calling Moore. He felt the need to take action while the topic is hot.
"Most people my age aren't following this trial through the news," Jacobs said. "They're seeing it on social media, and the comments under those posts are almost entirely cynical. The assumption is that nothing will change."
Many techies, however, fear too much change.
It's an industry that's long been concerned about regulations and laws infringing on free speech, and experts say there are nuances that make social media hard to regulate. Age verifications and parental controls come with notorious loopholes. Teenagers in Australia are reportedly using social media apps more now despite a ban late last year, in part because they can use virtual private networks (VPNs) and bypass local laws.
Then there's the emergence of artificial intelligence chatbots and companions that create a host of other concerns for underage usage, but that aren't generally considered part of the social media industry.
Allison Ball, a former Facebook product leader, previously invested in Jacobs' startup. Now a venture capitalist, Ball said she admires the work Jacobs and Moore are doing but wants them to stay "maniacally focused on what could actually help" instead of advocating for regulations that she believes could have unintended consequences.
"It's the hardest thing in modern society to get right," Ball said. "Where to limit freedoms and who to hold accountable, that's super difficult for the government to get right."
She agreed that education is important but that "it's just not going to solve the whole problem."
From tobacco to social mediaAmong those who were deeply engaged in the tobacco case, Moore isn't alone in recognizing the similarities to social media.
Lawyers Joe Rice and Steve Berman were two of the key architects of the tobacco settlement and, like Moore, were also heavily involved in opioid-related litigation. Berman speculates that Meta will next settle the school districts case, which stemmed from some 1,200 districts across the country accusing the Facebook parent and other social media companies of spreading intentionally addictive features.
"They're going to have to take care of this problem, or they're just going to be litigated forever," Berman said.
Rice, whose law firm Motley Rice is involved in multiple social media trials, said that in order for a master settlement to take place, the tech companies have to come together in a way that's unfamiliar to them given how much they compete with one another.
"At some point in time, it's possible that the two or three largest platforms can say, 'Look, we should all agree to this,'" he said. "They're not in lockstep right now."
Moore said that he's initiated potential master settlement language with AGs, but he declined to comment further. He's enlisting his colleagues at the Truth Initiative to work with Jacobs and representatives from the AGs' offices.
Until there's broader resolution, court cases remain on the calendar.
Among them is a case involving Snap in New Mexico, where state AG Raul Torrez, a board member with the Truth Initiative, is leading a child-sexual exploitation lawsuit. It's similar to a case that Meta lost in New Mexico earlier this year. The trial there is scheduled for about a year from now.
WATCH: Meta's post settlement challenges: Here's what to know.
Meta is rated a Strong Buy, driven by a robust ad business, high margins, and a defensible moat. META's hyperscaling capex is justified by clear ROI in ad engagement and recommendation models, with ARPP up 24% and revenue up 27% in Q2 2026. AI investments, including LLMs and recommendation models, are materially improving engagement and monetization, despite Meta lagging in the LLM/cloud race.
In this video, I will cover Meta (META +1.21%) and explain why I believe it remains significantly undervalued despite ongoing legal issues. Watch the short video to learn more, consider subscribing, and click the special offer link below.
*Stock prices used were from the trading day of Aug. 19, 2026. The video was published on Aug. 19, 2026.
Neil Rozenbaum has positions in Meta Platforms. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Meta Platforms. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Neil is an affiliate of The Motley Fool and may be compensated for promoting its services. If you choose to subscribe through his link, he will earn some extra money that supports his channel. His opinions remain his own and are unaffected by The Motley Fool.
Plus, gauging the effectiveness of school phone bans, how the fallen ‘Nostradamus of AI' got to the top of tech, Nvidia wants to run the world's robots and more.
Meta wants to change the public's perception of its smart glasses. picture alliance/dpa/picture alliance via Getty Images The small camera installed in Meta's AI smart glasses has become a problem for the company and the public.
Photos and videos captured by Meta glasses have proliferated on social media, and not all of them are consensual. Clips of content creators harassing women and recording their reactions covertly have become a trend, raising concerns about privacy.
"Are you a secret code?" one male content creator asked a woman in an Instagram video. "Because I'm trying to crack you." Some social media users have dubbed Meta's product "pervert glasses."
It's all a bad look for Meta. So the company is making moves to get ahead of the negativity. It has recently publicized new privacy settings for its glasses and has launched a PR blitz to explain them.
Meta Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth posted an Instagram video on Friday, for example, in which he explained how the smart glasses' hands-free camera works.
Alex Schultz talks about Meta Ray-Ban Glasses and its 'big breakthrough' with the SuperBowl
"We designed this camera to be noticed by the people around you, so in every pair of glasses we make, there's a capture LED on the front, and it lights up when someone's taking photos or videos for the gallery," Bosworth said.
Bosworth said the camera has no off switch. It stops working if people try to cover or deactivate it.
"We took this issue all the way across Meta, and we've been taking down content and even whole accounts connected to people misusing the glasses," Bosworth said.
Alex Himel, the vice president of wearables at Meta, also attempted to calm nerves on Friday in a Threads post. He said Meta's smart glasses will not allow users to record if the camera's LED light is blocked before or during recording.
"We're going to keep rolling out updates like this to make sure the capture LED can reliably alert bystanders when photos or videos are being captured for someone's gallery," Himel said.
While the company has suspended accounts that use the cameras to harass people, Business Insider's Katie Notopoulos reported last week that it hasn't been able to catch them all.
Meta has taken strides to make their smart glasses a must-have accessory. The company has partnered with megastars like Kylie Jenner and Teyana Taylor, and it produced a star-studded Super Bowl LX ad to drum up hype.
As AI smart glasses become increasingly accessible, some event and venue organizers are taking a cautious approach with guests. Burning Man told attendees at the 2026 festival, which starts Monday, that they can bring smart glasses, but must get consent before filming anyone. New York City nightclub Basement updated its no-photo-and-video policy to include smart eyewear.
"Anyone bringing smart glasses into the venue, whether wearing them or carrying them in a bag, will be asked to leave and may be permanently banned," the venue said in an Instagram post on Friday.
Organizers for the DEFCON Hacking Conference told attendees in July that smart glasses and similar items are prohibited.
In his Instagram video, Bosworth urged users to watch for the LED light that indicates the cameras are recording.
"Please remember," he added, "the light is there for everyone."
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Lauren Edmonds You're currently following this author! Want to unfollow? Unsubscribe via the link in your email.
Lauren Edmonds is an award-winning reporter on the Business News team. When news isn't breaking, she covers personal finance, kitchen-table economics, and paths to financial freedom, including investing, real estate, side hustles, and small business. She also writes about guaranteed and universal basic income programs in the United States.Lauren has also covered lifestyle and entertainment, digital culture, and more. She has a master's degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and resides in New York City.Do you have an interesting story to tell? You can reach Lauren at [email protected] or on Signal at ledmonds0.07.Popular StoriesNetflix wants to be Disney when it grows up Why Hollywood is paying this 17-year-old up to $20,000 to boost film trailers with TikTok editsHere's all the free money Trump's talked about giving Americans during his second term — and where it all standsA 17-year-old earned $72,000 after investing his e-commerce profits into stocks. Here's why he bet on the tech industry.Lawmakers float a nationwide basic income experiment that would cover the cost of a 2-bedroom apartmentNearly 30,000 Americans have received about $335 million in basic income. Here are 5 takeaways. Americans ditch suffocating healthcare costs and divisive politics to retire in Italy: 'It's the way they approach life'From 'road-schooling' to gas that costs $500, this family of 4 shares what it's like living in a solar-powered Greyhound bus
Meta Platforms (META +1.21%) stock peaked more than a year ago. The record close of $790.00 came on Aug. 12, 2025 (shares briefly traded as high as $796.25 three days later), and the stock, trading for about $579 as of this writing, sits about 27% below that mark.
In between came an expensive year: capital spending plans that kept climbing, a quarter of falling earnings, and a landmark legal settlement.
Here's my prediction anyway. Meta stock closes above that record before 2029.
That call doesn't require the stock's price-to-earnings ratio to rise. Getting back to the record by the end of 2028 requires about 36% appreciation, which works out to about 14% a year. And Meta's core business is already growing considerably faster than that.
Image source: Getty Images.
The ads business is still compounding fastWhatever the stock has done, the advertising business is still compounding fast. Meta's second-quarter revenue rose 28% year over year to $60.8 billion, or 27% on a constant-currency basis. That's a step down from the first quarter's 33% growth, but volume and pricing are both still climbing. Ad impressions increased 14% year over year, while the average price per ad rose 12%. The company's apps now reach 3.60 billion daily active people, up 3%.
Why is the stock down, then? Because the bottom line hasn't kept up.
Costs and expenses in the second quarter jumped 55% year over year to $42.0 billion, dragging its operating margin down to 31% from 43% a year earlier. Diluted earnings per share fell 13% to $6.18.
To be fair, the quarter absorbed $2.4 billion of charges tied to legal proceedings and $1.18 billion of severance from a May headcount reduction -- about $3.6 billion of items that shouldn't repeat. The more durable weight is the build-out itself. Meta expects 2026 capital expenditures of $130 billion to $145 billion for artificial intelligence (AI) and its core business, a range whose floor it raised in July.
Then, last week, Meta agreed to pay up to $16.7 billion to settle claims from a coalition of state attorneys general that it misled the public about its apps' harms to teenagers, plus a separate $1 billion agreement with Texas. It has been a long time since this company gave the market an uncomplicated quarter.
The math, at today's multipleStill, the prediction doesn't need an uncomplicated quarter. It needs math. Shares trade at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of about 17, based on expected 2027 earnings. For the stock to sit at $790.00 at that same valuation multiple, the earnings the market is pricing in would need to be about 36% higher than today's -- mid-teens annual earnings growth between now and the end of 2028. No multiple expansion required.
For a business growing revenue 28%, that could prove a modest ask.
One more charge comes first, though: Meta says it expects to book about $10 billion of legal expense in the third quarter to cover the settlement, a cost it hadn't built into its prior outlook. But charges like that end. The settlement converts an open-ended legal risk into a mostly known number -- about $12.7 billion of a roughly $18 billion package going to the states over 10 years, with the remaining $5.3 billion contingent on rival platforms accepting similar terms. And the severance reflects a company cutting headcount while revenue compounds -- the reported 75,472 still counts about 8,000 people cut in May, most of them gone by the end of this quarter.
The spending has to pay offThe honest risk to this forecast is the same thing that knocked the stock down in the first place. Capital spending of $130 billion to $145 billion this year becomes depreciation for years afterward, and depreciation lands directly on the earnings line.
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If total expenses keep growing anywhere near 55% while revenue grows 28%, earnings won't compound in the mid-teens. They'll keep shrinking, and the math above falls apart. Second-quarter free cash flow of $784 million, down from $8.5 billion a year earlier, shows how much of the profit the build-out is consuming.
But CEO Mark Zuckerberg's claim that "AI is accelerating our core business today" is showing up in the numbers, at least on the revenue line. Ad prices rising 12% while impressions grow 14% is what an effective AI advertising system looks like. The spending has a return attached, and the question is timing.
Will Meta see its record again before 2029?
I believe it will. The required return is about 14% a year, the advertising business is compounding at twice that rate, and the stock's forward price-to-earnings ratio of about 17 is a modest price for this kind of growth.
If 2027 arrives with expenses still growing twice as fast as revenue, I'd rethink the call. Until then, I'd rather own the stock.
Back in January of this year, nuclear technology firm Oklo (OKLO -5.62%) announced an agreement with Meta Platforms (META +1.21%) to develop a nuclear facility in Ohio to support data centers in the region.
The "nuclear campus" will be located in south central Ohio, not far from both Cincinnati and Columbus, and will deliver 1.2 gigawatts of power to Meta facilities. Pre-construction is scheduled to begin in 2027 and general construction in late 2028 or 2029. The hope is that the first phase of the nuclear plant will come online around 2030. (Oklo does not yet have the necessary license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for the facility -- it is pursuing that now.)
The Oklo facility will center on so-called "Aurora reactors," small modular reactors (SMRs) that can be built more quickly and cheaply because they're partly manufactured in factories and then delivered to the site. Yet because these reactors are new and relatively untested, meaningful scale-up by 2030 is unlikely. So, a date several years later is much more plausible.
Image source: Getty Images.
Meta is not the only hyperscaler pursuing nuclear power for its AI data centers. Microsoft signed a 20-year agreement with Constellation Energy that will reopen a retired reactor at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania.
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In September 2025, Oklo broke ground for a reactor in Idaho. The company's share price is down 45% this year, however, as investors remain somewhat cautious about the prospects of its business model and the viability of unproven SMR technology.
Matthew Benjamin has positions in Microsoft. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Constellation Energy, Meta Platforms, and Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Meta Platforms resolved a major regulatory overhang with a teen safety settlement, removing a key risk to the stock. The $18 billion settlement is manageable, representing less than 1% of annual revenues and minimal impact on long-term profitability. META trades at a substantial valuation discount to mega-cap tech peers, with a forward P/E of 16x versus the sector's 23x average.
In October 2021, Abrham Meareg’s father, a professor of chemistry in Ethiopia’s northern town of Bahir Dar, was shot at close range and died outside his family home. This was in the middle of the country’s civil war.
For weeks, Facebook’s algorithm had actively promoted posts calling for the academic to be murdered, according to Meareg and Foxglove, a nonprofit organisation supporting Meareg’s lawsuit against the company in Kenya. These posts included photos of his father and his home address.
Meareg filed the lawsuit in 2022. He said he repeatedly asked Facebook to remove the posts and the company did nothing. Nearly four years later, the case has still not been heard. Foxglove said Meta, Facebook’s parent company, had “fought tooth and nail to avoid responsibility”.
Meareg said: “It’s a matter of numbers to them, a matter of statistics. It has been proven multiple times that our lives do not matter to them.”
On Wednesday, Meta settled a lawsuit brought by 29 US states who argued it had designed addictive products that hooked young people. The social media company agreed to pay $18bn and to change certain features of its platform in the US. California’s attorney general said it was a victory that would make “a world of difference for children and their families”.
But elsewhere in the world, in jurisdictions as far flung as Amsterdam and Nairobi, other claims have yet to be heard. Far bigger questions about the power of a single US technology company to shape politics and democracy everywhere on Earth are still to be answered.
For the US, the settlement is a victory. A jury has done what the US Congress could not – put controls on a powerful tech company. As a part of the settlement, Meta has said it will set time limits on children’s use of its platforms Facebook and Instagram and block night-time usage.
For Meta, the settlement is also a victory. Its share price rose in the hours after the deal was announced. Its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, was not forced to testify. The sum it is to pay, while not meaningless, is far less than the states had sought – $200bn – or the amount Meta itself had suggested in a court filing it might have to pay, which was up to $1.4tn.
Meta’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty ImagesFor the rest of the world, however, the picture is more mixed. The limits Meta will put on its US platform are, in large part, similar to limits the UK and Australia have already achieved through regulation. There are certain concessions Meta has now made that other governments could also demand: for example, while the UK plans to ban under-16s from social media platforms, it may wish to ask Meta to impose a default daily use limit of two hours for under-18s, which is what the company has agreed to in the US.
None of this meaningfully changes the equation for Meareg or what his case represents, which is that a massive US company, unaccountable to voters, unbound by transparency requirements, owns a worldwide digital commons that shapes reality for billions of people.
Whether courts and governments outside the US have the power to confront this fact is a far thornier question.
The central issue of Meareg’s case is Meta’s algorithm. This is the system that decides what content to show users of Facebook and Instagram. It sees you linger over a video about knitting sweaters, for example, and then decides you’ll like one about how to care for your spider plant.
It sees teenage girls watch diet content and shows them anorexia influencers. It sees young men search for bodybuilding content and shows them Andrew Tate. It is alleged to have amplified content that promoted the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya in Myanmar. It contributed to the election victory of Donald Trump.
Meareg’s lawsuit rests on the claim that this algorithm promoted the posts that called for the death of his father, and that Facebook’s sparse moderation in east Africa did almost nothing to prevent this.
In the early days of the Meta trial in the US, it seemed plausible that states would push the social media firm to finally make some changes to this algorithm. Those changes had the potential to fundamentally alter how the company does business. Meta’s algorithm is intended to keep users scrolling, stuck on the platform, and then it shows them ads.
But that is not what appears to have happened. The terms of the settlement will slightly change what is shown to minors, in that they will not necessarily have personalised feeds. But it is hard to see this concession changing the equation in war zones or creaking democracies.
Arturo Béjar, an ex-Facebook employee and whistleblower, said the limitations were “the equivalent of saying: ‘Well, you can smoke as many cigarettes as you can in two hours a day.’ It doesn’t make the cigarettes any safer.”
It may be up to groups and individuals elsewhere in the world to try to push for these larger changes. It will be an uphill struggle.
Protests in Malaysia in 2012 against the persecution of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. Meta was alleged in a lawsuit to have amplified content that promoted the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya. Photograph: Mohd Rasfan/AFP via Getty ImagesIn Kenya, the high court recently ruled that Meareg’s case against Meta could go ahead, after years of legal manoeuvring from the company to try to prevent it. It could now be heard in the next year.
Rosa Curling, Foxglove’s co-executive director, said: “Meta’s lawyers have spent years trying to prevent this important case being heard, thankfully without success. We hope that the news from the US is a sign that Mark Zuckerberg’s time is finally up.”
In the Netherlands, Repro Uncensored, a nonprofit organisation tracking digital censorship, hailed the US settlement as a “major victory”. Repro Uncensored has an ongoing legal case against Meta in the Netherlands for alleged discrimination against queer accounts, and plans further action in other European countries.
Martha Dimitratou, Repro Uncensored’s executive director, said: “The next stage of accountability must address not only addictive design but algorithms, discriminatory moderation and automated decision-making. These systems shape civic participation and democracy, and the companies controlling them must be held accountable globally.”
The European Commission released a charge sheet against Meta this summer saying the company’s features, including its infinite scroll, contributed to “unhealthy habits and compulsive use”.
That charge sheet is part of an investigation into Meta that the commission launched in 2024. It may lead to Europe pushing for larger changes from Meta, including to its personal algorithm.
It is unclear whether any of these groups or parties can succeed. Meta appears to fear US regulators and courts: after all, it caved after just four days of its US trial. It does not appear to be as intimidated by regulators elsewhere.
Earlier this year it managed to dodge a class-action lawsuit brought by a group of Rohingya refugees over its alleged role in contributing to a genocide in Myanmar. It will have the help of the Trump administration in opposing any EU regulation that could curb its reach in Europe.
Meta declined to respond to questions about either Meareg’s or Repro Uncensored’s cases. In an earlier response to whistleblower allegations that it fuelled violence in Ethiopia and Myanmar, it pushed back forcefully, saying it was “just not true” that the company put profits over safety. Regarding Meareg’s case, it has said it employs staff with local knowledge and expertise to “catch violating content” in Ethiopia.
Meareg said he believed that Meta expected him to give up. “They don’t know how I am determined for justice,” he said. “It is the thing you do for the person you love. If you love someone – and I loved my dad from my heart – then he needs justice. He needs a public apology. There has to be accountability.”
Analyst’s Disclosure: I/we have a beneficial long position in the shares of META, GOOGL either through stock ownership, options, or other derivatives. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.
Seeking Alpha's Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.
Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META – Get Free Report) was the recipient of unusually large options trading on Wednesday. Stock investors acquired 919,714 call options on the company. This represents an increase of 50% compared to the typical daily volume of 614,624 call options.
Meta Platforms News Roundup Here are the key news stories impacting Meta Platforms this week:
Positive Sentiment: Meta agreed to settle claims brought by dozens of U.S. states for up to approximately $16.7 billion to $18 billion, substantially below figures that analysts and states had discussed as potentially reaching $200 billion or more. The deal ends the trial and leaves Meta’s core advertising business, personalized recommendations and targeted advertising largely intact. Meta’s social media settlement leaves its money machine unscathed Positive Sentiment: Analyst support remains favorable in some quarters: Rosenblatt raised its price target to $886 and maintained a buy rating, while Benchmark and Needham reiterated hold ratings. Investors also continue to point to Meta’s advertising momentum, AI infrastructure and potential to monetize excess computing capacity. Meta price target raised by Rosenblatt Neutral Sentiment: The settlement requires two-hour daily limits for users under 18, overnight blocking from midnight to 6 a.m. without parental consent, muted school-hour notifications, autoplay controls, stronger age checks and expanded parental controls. The measures may reduce engagement, but could also lower future regulatory and litigation risk. Meta settles federal social media addiction trial Negative Sentiment: The payout could equal several months of profit, and the agreement’s restrictions may pressure usage and advertising opportunities among younger users. Critics and a case whistleblower said the changes do not adequately address mental-health harms, while the settlement reportedly gives states protection from certain future lawsuits involving children’s data. Whistleblower criticizes Meta settlement Negative Sentiment: Regulators in the U.K., South Korea and Australia are urging Meta to apply the safeguards globally, raising the possibility of additional compliance costs and similar actions overseas. Investors are also monitoring Meta’s heavy AI spending and reports that it could spend up to $10 billion annually on Anthropic tools. South Korea urges global youth protections Insider Activity at Meta Platforms In other Meta Platforms news, CFO Susan J. Li sold 9,196 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, August 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $550.61, for a total value of $5,063,409.56. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer directly owned 13,186 shares in the company, valued at $7,260,343.46. This trade represents a 41.09% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, insider Curtis J. Mahoney sold 1,559 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $558.00, for a total value of $869,922.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider owned 1,957 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,092,006. The trade was a 44.34% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders sold 34,957 shares of company stock valued at $20,442,696 in the last three months. Corporate insiders own 13.53% of the company’s stock.
Hedge Funds Weigh In On Meta Platforms Hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Ashton Thomas Securities LLC grew its position in shares of Meta Platforms by 17.4% in the first quarter. Ashton Thomas Securities LLC now owns 18,000 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $10,299,000 after purchasing an additional 2,670 shares in the last quarter. Keybank National Association OH raised its holdings in Meta Platforms by 15.7% during the fourth quarter. Keybank National Association OH now owns 133,798 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $88,319,000 after purchasing an additional 18,169 shares in the last quarter. WMS Group LLC acquired a new stake in Meta Platforms in the fourth quarter valued at $876,000. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in shares of Meta Platforms by 3.8% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 199,995,630 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $132,015,115,000 after acquiring an additional 7,269,279 shares during the period. Finally, Czech National Bank boosted its position in shares of Meta Platforms by 4.9% in the 2nd quarter. Czech National Bank now owns 625,079 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $352,101,000 after buying an additional 29,411 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 79.91% of the company’s stock. Meta Platforms Trading Down 0.9% Meta Platforms stock opened at $571.10 on Friday. Meta Platforms has a 52-week low of $520.26 and a 52-week high of $790.80. The company has a quick ratio of 2.23, a current ratio of 2.23 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32. The firm has a market capitalization of $1.45 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.51, a PEG ratio of 0.98 and a beta of 1.25. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $592.26 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $611.84.
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META – Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 29th. The social networking company reported $6.18 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $7.19 by ($1.01). Meta Platforms had a net margin of 29.83% and a return on equity of 33.18%. The business had revenue of $60.80 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $60.22 billion. During the same period last year, the firm posted $7.14 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 28.0% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts expect that Meta Platforms will post 28.5 earnings per share for the current year.
Analysts Set New Price Targets Several equities analysts recently issued reports on META shares. Weiss Ratings downgraded Meta Platforms from a “buy (b-)” rating to a “hold (c+)” rating in a research report on Friday, June 26th. UBS Group cut their price target on Meta Platforms from $766.00 to $715.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, July 30th. Wall Street Zen downgraded shares of Meta Platforms from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday, May 16th. Roth Capital reiterated a “buy” rating on shares of Meta Platforms in a report on Thursday, April 30th. Finally, Cantor Fitzgerald dropped their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $770.00 to $680.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, July 30th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-four have issued a Buy rating and nine have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $785.22.
Get Our Latest Research Report on Meta Platforms
Meta Platforms Company Profile (Get Free Report)
Meta Platforms, Inc (NASDAQ: META), formerly Facebook, Inc, is a global technology company best known for building social networking services and immersive computing platforms. Founded in 2004 and headquartered in Menlo Park, California, the company operates a family of consumer-facing products and services that connect users, creators and businesses. In October 2021 the company rebranded as Meta to reflect an expanded strategic focus on augmented and virtual reality technologies alongside its social media businesses.
Meta’s core consumer products include Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, which enable social networking, messaging, content sharing and community building across mobile and desktop devices.
See Also Five stocks we like better than Meta Platforms Nutanix’s Rally Has a Bigger Story Than Earnings as AMD’s AI Bet Takes Shape SEC Probe Puts Wall Street Leverage Risk Back in Focus A Bearish-Dollar Options Surge Raises the Stakes for Warsh at Jackson Hole Five Below’s Turnaround Is Working—But Has the Stock Run Too Far? Receive News & Ratings for Meta Platforms Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for Meta Platforms and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter.
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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg Ed Mulholland/Zuffa LLC Last week, when Meta went on trial over allegations that Facebook and Instagram were designed to addict kids, I hunkered down for weeks of testimony from executives, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Just eight days later, it was over. On Wednesday, Meta agreed to settle for up to $18 billion, cutting short a trial in which four states were seeking roughly $200 billion, and keeping Zuckerberg off the witness stand.
The settlement is historic — the largest that a Big Tech company has ever paid to states.
It's also easy money for Meta. Meta's payouts to the states will happen over an entire decade in guaranteed annual installments of roughly $1.17 billion — almost exactly, as one of its former engineering directors noted on X, what its Reality Labs division loses every 24 days. In just the last quarter, Meta made $16 billion in profit, and over $60 billion in 2025.
That doesn't mean Meta gets a pass. For the first time, it will meaningfully change how its apps work for teenagers, including defaulting teen accounts to a two-hour daily limit, offering an option to make chronological feeds the default, blocking features overnight, and silencing most notifications during school hours.
Alex Schultz talks about Meta Ray-Ban Glasses and its 'big breakthrough' with the SuperBowl
But it's in the fine print that these limits start looking less absolute. Parents can override them; messaging doesn't count toward the two-hour cap and remains available overnight; and videos that run at least 22 minutes don't count, either.
More importantly, Meta has turned its own punishment into leverage against its competitors.
It will pay roughly 70% of the settlement regardless, but the remaining 30% — more than $5 billion — will be paid only if YouTube and TikTok adopt similar restrictions and make comparable payments to states. On Thursday, Meta ran newspaper advertisements calling for both YouTube and TikTok to join the company "in supporting teens." One analyst even called the settlement a "win" for Meta.
We've already seen a more extreme version of this play out. Last year, Australia barred kids under 16 from social media outright. Usage fell at first, then climbed right back toward pre-ban levels as kids found workarounds, Business Insider's Katie Notopoulos reported. By July, 26% of Australian 13 to 15-year-olds were back on TikTok.
If an outright ban couldn't keep Australian teenagers logged off, a two-hour timer with a messaging loophole probably won't do much better.
At least one American state isn't buying the "win" either. Florida refused to join the settlement and plans to keep fighting Meta in court.
"Trying to wipe out a decade of harm to the nation's youth with one month's cash flow is an insult," Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier wrote on X. "Corporations like Meta will never learn a lesson if they don't incur real costs for breaking the law."
So what did $18 billion actually buy? A 10-year payment plan, a CEO who skipped the stand, and rules loose enough that the core business of keeping teens hooked barely has to change — all for a guaranteed annual bill of less than 2% of last year's profit.
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Pranav Dixit You're currently following this author! Want to unfollow? Unsubscribe via the link in your email.
Pranav Dixit is the Meta Correspondent at Business Insider based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He writes about Meta’s products, policies, and internal workings while examining how the company’s decisions shape how billions of people connect and communicate.Previously, Pranav was the India-based technology correspondent for BuzzFeed News, covering the impact of Silicon Valley’s largest companies on the culture, society, and politics of more than a billion people in South Asia. He has also been a senior news editor at Engadget and ran technology coverage at the Hindustan Times, one of India’s largest national newspapers.Pranav’s reporting has shed light on the human consequences of Big Tech’s quest for growth in emerging markets, and sparked widespread conversations about the impact of American technology companies on the Global South. In 2019, he won Syracuse University’s Mirror Award for a boots-on-the-ground feature about how WhatsApp misinformation sparked gruesome lynchings in rural India. He has also reported from Kashmir, a volatile geopolitical hotspot, documenting the world’s longest-running internet shutdown.His work has been widely cited by major national and international publications, and he has been featured on the BBC, Al Jazeera, and podcasts such as Vox Media’s Land of the Giants to discuss his work. He has also spoken in journalism classes including at UC Berkeley’s graduate journalism program. His writing has appeared in The Guardian, Vox, Time, The Information, and Al Jazeera.Pranav moved to the United States in 2021 from New Delhi, India, to be a fellow at Harvard University’s Nieman Foundation for Journalism, where he studied the evolution of the American tech press and ways newsrooms around the world can cover technology and society more effectively.Got a tip about Meta or anything else in Silicon Valley? Contact Pranav via encrypted messaging app Signal (+1408-905-9124), or email him at [email protected] or [email protected]. You can also reach him on WhatsApp at +857-753-3949 or DM him on X (@PranavDixit) or BlueSky (@pranavdixit.bsky.social).Pranav keeps sources anonymous. Please use a non-work device to reach out.Expertise: Meta, Facebook, WhatsApp, Llama, AI, Threads, Instagram, Mark Zuckerberg, social media, platforms, immigration
Meta Mark Zuckerberg AI More Trial Teens Social Media Lawsuits Big Tech
Every dip in Meta stock triggers the same response: another buy. With capex fears mounting and a trillion-dollar lawsuit underway, the case for adding shares keeps getting harder to ignore.
I keep hitting the buy button on Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META | META Price Prediction) and I am not planning to stop. Every time the stock takes a hit on capex fears or a legal headline, I add. My cost basis keeps rising, my share count keeps rising, and my conviction keeps rising with them. Here is why.
The core reason is simple. Meta owns the attention of 3.60 billion daily users across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Threads. That is roughly half of the internet-connected planet showing up every single day. When a business with that reach layers artificial intelligence on top of its ad engine, the compounding shows up in the numbers.
Three Reasons the Thesis Keeps Getting Stronger First, the advertising engine is accelerating, not maturing. Q2 2026 ad revenue reached $59.363 billion, up 27% year-over-year, with ad impressions up 14% and average price per ad up 12%. Meta’s new Generative Recommender helped drive an 8.3% increase in ad clicks on Facebook and a 15.7% uplift in conversions on Facebook. Volume and price are both climbing, and AI is the reason.
Second, the profitability profile is elite. Gross margin sits at 82.00%, return on equity at 30.24%, and return on invested capital at 20.69%. FY2025 operating cash flow came in at $115.8 billion. Meta is funding the largest AI buildout in its history from cash, with debt-to-equity of just 0.386 and interest coverage of 71.48x.
Third, the valuation is reasonable for what I am getting. The stock trades at a P/E of 21x, a forward P/E of 19x, and a PEG of 0.851. Analyst target prices sit at $754.72 against a current $571.10. The stock is down 23.34% over the past year. That is the window I have been using.
Why Meta and Not Alphabet The obvious alternative is Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), the other digital ad giant. I own it too. But my incremental dollar keeps going to Meta because of one line Zuckerberg delivered on the Q2 call: “On a dollar basis, our ads business is reporting faster year over year revenue growth than any other company’s reported ad business.” Ad revenue growth of 27% at Meta’s scale, with an operating margin of 41.44% and social distribution Google cannot replicate, is what earns the buy.
Risk I Am Actually Watching Capex is the real concern. Full-year 2026 guidance is $130.00-$145.00 billion, and Q2 free cash flow collapsed to $784 million, down 91.31% year-over-year. Youth-related litigation and a $16.68 billion settlement add real cost. But management still expects 2026 operating income above 2025 levels, and operating cash flow grew 24.65% in the same quarter FCF fell. All of that spending has to be powered, cooled, and networked by somebody, which is why we pulled together seven suppliers behind the AI buildout in a free report. The engine is spending, not stalling.
What Keeps the Buy Button Active Susan Li said Meta is demand-constrained on compute, with “numerous ROI positive places” to deploy more. Zuckerberg added, “My personal bet is that the people who invest in this are going to be rewarded and feel very good over time.” I am taking that bet, one buy at a time, and the receipts say I should keep adding.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
SummaryMeta Platforms settled child-harm lawsuits, agreeing to pay ~$18 billion over a decade, with limited impact on the stock.META has already experienced a 35% peak-to-trough drop, with recent lows double-tested and sentiment remaining weak.We believe the stock has a favorable risk/reward setup, rating META 'Accumulate' between $516 and $677, with a suggested stop just below $516.Potential upside targets are $835 (100% Fibonacci extension) and $1030 (1.618 extension), offering a 4:1 upside/downside ratio.Looking for a helping hand in the market? Members of Growth Investor Pro get exclusive ideas and guidance to navigate any climate. Learn More »DISCLAIMER: This note is intended for US recipients only and, in particular, is not directed at, nor intended to be relied upon by, any UK recipients. Nothing in this note is intended to be investment advice, nor should it be relied
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Analyst’s Disclosure: I/we have a beneficial long position in the shares of MAGS either through stock ownership, options, or other derivatives. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.
Cestrian Capital Research, Inc staff personal accounts hold long position(s) in MAGS.
Seeking Alpha's Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.
Meta's India and Southeast Asia vice president, Sandhya Devanathan, is leaving the social media giant to join OpenAI, the ChatGPT maker told TechCrunch.
Meta shares have shed more than 23% over the past year, and a brutal Q2 report gave bears plenty of ammunition. But our proprietary model sees a very different story forming underneath the selloff.
Meta (NASDAQ:META | META Price Prediction) has been divisive in 2026 after a soft Q2 earnings report. Our proprietary model sees meaningful room to run.
The 24/7 Wall St. price target for Meta is $777.60 over the next 12 months, implying 34.97% upside from a current price of $576.14. Our recommendation is buy, with a high 90% model confidence level. The bull case pushes toward $856.94, a roughly 50% gain.
24/7 Wall St. Price Target Summary Metric Value Current Price $576.14 24/7 Wall St. Price Target $777.60 Upside 34.97% Recommendation BUY Confidence Level 90% Why The Stock Has Been Sliding Meta is down 12.57% year to date and 23.35% over the past year, trading well below the 52-week high of $788.22. The Q2 2026 report on July 29 was the catalyst.
Revenue of $60.80 billion beat consensus, up 27.96% year over year, but EPS of $6.18 missed the $7.22 estimate by 14.42%, snapping a six-quarter beat streak.
Operating margin compressed to 31% from 43% after $2.40 billion in legal charges and $1.18 billion in severance. Free cash flow collapsed to $784 million as capex hit $30.12 billion.
Bull Case Toward $856 The bull thesis rests on AI leverage already showing in results. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, “We are now at a point where our investments in AI are accelerating every major part of our core business.”
Q2 ad impressions rose 14% and average price per ad climbed 12%, driving Family of Apps ad revenue to $59.4 billion. Advantage Plus has reached $75 billion in annual run rate, and 9 million small businesses use AI creative tools.
Meta Business Agents deploy to more than 1 million businesses weekly users. Ray-Ban Meta glasses grow revenue, enterprise API opportunity expands, and 3.6 billion daily users drive engagement. Wall Street’s 89% bullish consensus reflects this. The 247Factor bull scenario projects $856.94, or roughly 50% upside.
Risks Worth Watching Capex is the elephant. FY2026 guidance was raised to $130 to $145 billion, with total expenses at $165 to $169 billion. Reality Labs lost roughly $19.2 billion in FY2025 with no near-term path to profit.
That spending fuels the same AI data-center buildout powering an entire supply chain of picks-and-shovels names (we profiled seven of them, from power to cooling, in a free report here: 7 Stocks Powering the AI Boom).
Youth-litigation trials in 2026 could produce material judgments. Bulls counter that margin compression reflects one-time legal and severance charges, and operating income excluding those items would have grown 9% year over year. In a bear scenario, the model projects $684.66, still 18.84% above current levels.
How Meta Compares To Alphabet And Snap Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) is the most direct comp on digital ad dollars and AI infrastructure. GOOGL trades at a forward P/E of 17 with a 54.8% profit margin and 24.2% quarterly revenue growth.
Meta’s forward P/E of 19 sits modestly above that, but Meta grew Q2 revenue faster at 27.96%. Our target looks reasonable rather than stretched.
Snap (NYSE:SNAP) offers the pure-play social contrast. Snap posts a negative -2.64% operating margin against Meta’s Q2 31%, and its forward P/E of 11 reflects that gap.
Meta’s premium versus Snap is earned by scale, profitability, and AI monetization, supporting $777 as a fair 12-month price target.
Company Forward P/E Operating Margin Meta 19 31% Alphabet 17 34% Snap 11 -2.64% Meta Price Prediction 2026-2030 The 24/7 Wall St. price target of $777.60 and buy rating rest on 90% confidence, with AI monetization as the swing factor.
The bull case holds if Meta’s AI-driven ad performance and enterprise agent business lift 2027 earnings toward the forward EPS estimate of $40.08. The bear case emerges if capex outpaces revenue growth into 2027. On balance, the model’s risk/reward skews positive.
Year 24/7 Wall St. Price Target 2026 $651 2027 $801 2028 $988 2029 $1,147 2030 $1,254 These projections assume Meta executes on AI-driven ad optimization and Reality Labs losses stabilize. Significant upside or downside could come from a personal-agent breakout or adverse youth-litigation outcome.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Meta Platforms NASDAQ: META just put a massive legal case in the rearview mirror, albeit at a very high cost. In a legal battle that involved several U.S. states, Meta has agreed to payments of up to approximately $18 billion.
While this is certainly a hefty sum, the Magnificent Seven giant may have exited this legal entanglement with a largely favorable outcome.
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The company avoided a result that could have led to far worse financial damage—providing a silver lining to investors amid the company's multi-month legal headwinds.
Meta’s Settles for Far Less Than Initially FearedThe up to $18 billion payments related to Meta’s youth social media addiction case are a far cry from the massive payments the firm could have faced. Meta itself previously noted that plaintiffs in this case were seeking up to $1.4 trillion in damages. Right off the bat, it seemed highly unrealistic that Meta would ever face payments at this level, which was very close to the company’s entire market capitalization. It would have also been many times larger than the tobacco industry’s $206 billion settlement in 1998, one of the largest legal settlements ever.
However, Meta’s payments will still not even come close to “more realistic” plaintiff expectations of $200 billion in damages. At up to $18 billion, Meta’s maximum payment will come in at just 9% of this $200 billion figure. Additionally, a significant portion of this payment is contingent on events that may not materialize.
Of the total, guaranteed payments come in at $12.7 billion. This includes a separate $1 billion settlement reached with Texas and $459 million related to the resolution of state cases around its 2018 Cambridge Analytica scandal.
The remaining sum of approximately $5 billion is contingent on broader industry action. Meta says the additional payments depend in part on Alphabet’s NASDAQ: GOOGL YouTube and ByteDance's TikTok adopting a one-hour daily limit, Night Mode, and age-assurance measures and making corresponding monetary payments. Overall, it is possible that Meta will not face this additional $5 billion in penalties.
Separately, Meta agreed to several youth-safety measures of its own, including a two-hour daily time limit for children who use its apps and a nighttime block between midnight and 6 a.m. However, parents can voluntarily remove these restrictions.
Meta Skirts Vast Algorithm Changes, Faces $10 Billion Q3 ExpenseIt appears Meta will not have to make significant changes to its algorithms as a result of this case, but will simply need to implement youth-specific features. This is important, given that carving out a separate set of algorithms for users may have been difficult, straining internal operations and complicating its engagement capabilities. Meta and the plaintiffs settled this trial in relatively short order, only around a week after it began. This indicates that Meta wanted to put the issue to bed quickly and that the plaintiffs were happy to receive the sum that they did.
This dynamic could bode well for further legal scrutiny the company faces related to youth issues. It suggests that the sky-high settlement initially stated had little connection to what was actually on the table. In turn, Meta could settle for far less than those initial numbers in future cases.
Financially, Meta intends to incur legal expenses of $10 billion in Q3, which will have a significant negative impact on metrics such as earnings per share (EPS). However, given that the company has disclosed it, it should not come as a surprise to investors and analysts during its next report. In turn, the charge alone is unlikely to lead to a meaningfully negative post-earnings reaction. Additionally, although its legal expenses will be actual cash charges, unlike depreciation or amortization, that cash will likely flow out over time.
The company will make its payments in 10 installments, with the first coming in the next 30 days. This initial payment will come alongside $75 million in state legal costs and the Cambridge Analytica payment. Taken together, this implies a cash impact of approximately $1.7 billion in Q3, excluding the firm’s own legal expenses. The company will make subsequent payments near the beginning of each calendar year, which should be closer to $1.2 billion based on current guaranteed payments.
From a cash flow perspective, this is a very solid outcome for the company. It allows Meta to see a relatively small outflow each year, rather than making a large upfront payment.
All Eyes Turn Back to AIDespite the commitment to billions in payments, the market reacted positively to the news. Meta shares closed up by more than 1% on Aug. 26 while the S&P 500 Index was flat on the day. This implies that investors viewed this as a favorable outcome for the company. That is not overly surprising, given how much larger the settlement could have been.
Meta Platforms, Inc. (META) Price Chart for Friday, August, 28, 2026
For investors, the result of Meta’s trial is largely positive. It removes a high-profile headwind around the company and allows markets to focus squarely on the company’s AI outlook. However, the trial serves as a clear reminder of the legal risk surrounding Meta—a risk that investors should not dismiss, as it may reemerge.
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Should You Invest $1,000 in Meta Platforms Right Now?Before you consider Meta Platforms, you'll want to hear this.
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It has been about a month since the last earnings report for Meta Platforms (META - Free Report) . Shares have added about 6% in that time frame, outperforming the S&P 500.
Will the recent positive trend continue leading up to its next earnings release, or is Meta Platforms due for a pullback? Before we dive into how investors and analysts have reacted as of late, let's take a quick look at the most recent earnings report in order to get a better handle on the important drivers.
META’s Q2 Earnings Miss Estimates, Revenues Rise Y/Y on Ad GrowthMeta Platforms reported second-quarter 2026 earnings of $6.18 per share, down 13.4% year over year and lagging the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 12.96%. Revenues climbed 28% year over year to $60.80 billion and surpassed the consensus mark by 0.98%.
Strong advertising demand and improving monetization supported the top line. Ad impressions increased 14% year over year, while the average price per ad advanced 12%. However, sharply higher infrastructure, compensation and legal-related costs weighed on profitability.
META's Ad Engine Drives Top-Line GrowthFamily of Apps revenues, accounting for 99.3% of total revenues, increased 28% year over year to $60.37 billion. Advertising revenues rose 27% year over year to $59.36 billion, reflecting healthy engagement, user growth and ad-load optimization across Meta’s services.
Family of Apps other revenues jumped 72.7% year over year to $1.01 billion, surpassing $1 billion for the first time. Growth was primarily driven by WhatsApp paid messaging and subscription revenues, providing Meta with additional monetization avenues beyond advertising.
Reality Labs revenues increased 16.5% year over year to $431 million, driven by growth in AI glasses sales, partially offset by lower Quest headset revenues.
Meta’s AI Gains Lift Engagement and AdsFamily daily active people averaged 3.60 billion in June, up 3% year over year. Instagram reached 2 billion daily active users, while Threads surpassed 500 million monthly active users. Global time spent on Instagram grew at a double-digit rate, supported by improvements to Feed and Reels recommendations.
Meta also reported measurable gains from AI-powered advertising systems. Advances in user understanding, ad ranking and sequence learning generated an 8.3% increase in ad clicks and a 15.7% uplift in Facebook conversions. Advantage+ solutions reached an annual revenue run rate of more than $75 billion.
META’s Costs Pressure Margins and EarningsTotal costs and expenses surged 55% year over year to $42.03 billion. The increase included $2.40 billion in charges related to legal proceedings and $1.18 billion in severance expenses tied to the May 2026 headcount reduction.
Operating income declined 8.2% year over year to $18.78 billion, while the operating margin contracted to 31% from 43% in the year-ago quarter. Excluding legal charges and severance expenses, META said operating income would have increased 9% year over year. Higher employee compensation, depreciation, data center operating costs, cloud spending and third-party AI token costs remained major expense drivers.
Family of Apps operating income fell 6.3% year over year to $23.39 billion. The segment continued to generate substantial profits, but elevated investment levels more than offset the benefit of strong revenue growth during the quarter.
Reality Labs segment operating loss widened to $4.62 billion from $4.53 billion, reflecting Meta’s continued spending on augmented and virtual reality products.
META’s Cash Flow Funds Heavy AI BuildoutCash flow from operating activities totaled $31.86 billion. Capital expenditures, including principal payments on finance leases, nearly doubled to $31.08 billion from $17.01 billion, leaving free cash flow of $784 million.
Meta ended the second quarter of 2026 with $90.26 billion in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities. Long-term debt stood at $83.66 billion.
The company issued nearly $25 billion of long-term debt during the reported quarter as it expanded the mix of capital used to fund long-duration infrastructure projects.
Meta’s Outlook Raises Spending VisibilityFor the third quarter of 2026, Meta expects revenues between $61 billion and $64 billion. The forecast assumes foreign currency will create an approximately 1% headwind to year-over-year revenue growth.
The company raised the lower end of its 2026 expense outlook and now expects total expenses of $165 billion to $169 billion. Meta continues to expect 2026 operating income to exceed the 2025 level and projects a tax rate of 15-17% for the remaining quarters.
Meta narrowed its capital expenditure forecast to $130 billion-$145 billion from $125 billion-$145 billion.
How Have Estimates Been Moving Since Then?Since the earnings release, investors have witnessed a downward trend in estimates review.
VGM ScoresAt this time, Meta Platforms has a nice Growth Score of B, though it is lagging a lot on the Momentum Score front with an F. However, the stock was allocated a grade of C on the value side, putting it in the middle 20% for this investment strategy.
Overall, the stock has an aggregate VGM Score of C. If you aren't focused on one strategy, this score is the one you should be interested in.
OutlookEstimates have been broadly trending downward for the stock, and the magnitude of these revisions indicates a downward shift. Interestingly, Meta Platforms has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). We expect an in-line return from the stock in the next few months.
Performance of an Industry PlayerMeta Platforms belongs to the Zacks Internet - Software industry. Another stock from the same industry, Calix (CALX - Free Report) , has gained 7.1% over the past month. More than a month has passed since the company reported results for the quarter ended June 2026.
Calix reported revenues of $293.33 million in the last reported quarter, representing a year-over-year change of +21.3%. EPS of $0.47 for the same period compares with $0.33 a year ago.
Calix is expected to post earnings of $0.42 per share for the current quarter, representing a year-over-year change of -4.6%. Over the last 30 days, the Zacks Consensus Estimate remained unchanged.
The overall direction and magnitude of estimate revisions translate into a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) for Calix. Also, the stock has a VGM Score of B.
Key Takeaways Meta is using closed-loop liquid cooling across most new AI-optimized data centers to manage GPU heat. Direct-to-chip cooling lets Meta boost GPU density and computing capacity without substantially more space. Meta expects 2026 capex of $130-$145B as it works to maximize computing capacity through 2027. Meta Platforms (META - Free Report) is strengthening its AI infrastructure with more efficient cooling technology as rising compute demand makes data-center efficiency increasingly critical.
Building on this momentum, the company recently announced that it is using closed-loop liquid cooling across the majority of its newest AI-optimized data centers to efficiently manage heat generated by increasingly powerful GPUs. The system circulates a water-and-glycol coolant through servers and heat exchangers before reusing it, significantly reducing ongoing water consumption. Meta Platforms expects the coolant to remain usable for up to a decade. Direct-to-chip cooling also enables higher GPU density within server racks, supporting greater computing capacity without substantially expanding data-center space.
Meta Platforms is additionally using reinforcement learning to optimize cooling operations across facilities. In a data-center pilot, this approach reduced energy consumed by air-cooling supply fans by an average of 20% and lowered water consumption by 4% across varying weather conditions.
These efficiency gains are expected to support Meta Platforms’ broader AI infrastructure expansion as it scales increasingly compute-intensive models and services. The company is deploying AI across recommendations and advertising while developing personal agents, business agents and enterprise offerings, creating multiple avenues to monetize its growing compute capacity. Meta Platforms believes near-term AI capacity remains highly valuable, with numerous ROI-positive opportunities across its core business.
In the second quarter of 2026, Meta Platforms has spent $31.1 billion on capital expenditures, primarily for servers, data centers and network infrastructure. The company expects full-year 2026 capital expenditures of $130-$145 billion as it works to maximize computing capacity during 2026 and 2027.
META Faces Stiff CompetitionMeta Platforms is facing stiff competition from competitors like Reddit (RDDT - Free Report) and Snap (SNAP - Free Report) . Both Snap and Reddit are expanding their portfolio in the AI space.
Reddit’s investments in artificial intelligence (AI)-powered tools remain noteworthy. In July 2026, Reddit unveiled new AI-powered moderation tools to combat spam, fake engagement and harmful content. The company said that its automated systems now block 23 million spam views daily, identify roughly 25,000 new spam posts and comments each day, and revoke nearly 2 million inauthentic votes daily.
Reddit also reduced user exposure to spam by about 20%. Expanded automated enforcement has cut average response time for hateful or violent content to under five seconds, increased enforcement actions by more than 200%, and reduced exposure to potentially harmful content by more than 40%.
Snap is leveraging AI through products like SPECS, which integrate hands-free AI assistance and advanced AR capabilities, positioning the company as a first mover in next-generation computing. AI-powered creative tools such as Lens+ are also driving new subscription revenue streams and enhancing user engagement.
META’s Share Price Performance, Valuation, and EstimatesMETA’s shares have lost 13.5% in the year-to-date period, underperforming the broader Zacks Computer & Technology sector’s return of 15.4%.
META Stock Performance
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
META shares are overvalued, with a forward 12-month Price/Sales of 5.05X compared with the Internet Software industry’s 3.97X. META has a Value Score of C.
META's Valuation
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2026 earnings is pegged at $31.90 per share, which has decreased 3.30% over the past 30 days. This suggests 35.80% year-over-year growth.
Meta Platforms currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
A 14-year-old boy holds an iPhone screen displaying various social media and messaging apps, including Instagram, Threads, Facebook, Truth Social, TikTok, X (formerly known as Twitter), WhatsApp, YouTube and Bluesky. (Photo by Anna Barclay/Getty Images)
Getty Images
Meta agreed to an $18 billion settlement to resolve claims that it designed Instagram and Facebook to addict children, misled the public about the dangers of its platforms, and illegally collected, retained and used children’s data. The settlement includes changes to how teens experience the platforms, like a two-hour daily time limit and muted notifications during school hours.
Whether these changes go far enough, go too far or will actually help children is up for debate. But for brands and creators whose businesses run on social media, the settlement raises real questions about how the platforms will change and whether their existing deals account for it.
Existing brand-creator deals were not written with these restrictions in mind. The gap between what was negotiated and what the platforms now deliver is worth examining before disputes begin.
ForbesMeta Agrees To $18 Billion Settlement In Social Media Addiction TrialBy Zachary Folk
The $18 Billion Meta Settlement ExplainedAccording to Meta’s blog post, the payment will be distributed in annual installments over 10 years, with participating states receiving 70% of the allocated payment (approximately $12.7 billion) to fund online safety initiatives for children.
Meta will pay the remaining 30% (approximately $5.3 billion) only if YouTube and TikTok: (1) implement similar protections and controls that Meta has agreed to implement; and (2) each pay an amount matching the 30% figure.
As part of the settlement, Meta agreed to implement certain protections and controls for teens in certain U.S. states and territories. Some of the changes include:
A default two-hour daily time limit cumulative across Facebook and Instagram, which only parents can turn off.A default prohibition on posting or viewing feeds, stories, explore pages or reels from midnight to 6 a.m.Muted notifications from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. (referred to as “school mode”).Prompts after every 15 minutes of continuous screen time and prompts when total daily usage hits 60 minutes and 90 minutes.Access to a non-algorithmic, non-personalized feed option.How The New Restrictions Impact Brand-Creator DealsBrand-creator deals on social media are typically structured as flat fees, sometimes with a commission on tracked sales or conversions. Brands and creators consider factors like follower count, average impressions per post and engagement rate when calculating the value of a deal.
That calculation is more art than science. Unlike traditional television advertising, which has decades of audience measurement data, influencer marketing on social media is a relatively young medium with limited standardized benchmarks.
Meta’s new restrictions change the conditions under which those deals were made. Together, the restrictions limit when teens are on Instagram and Facebook, how they discover content and how deeply they engage with it.
For creators in beauty, fashion, gaming and lifestyle whose audiences skew younger, like Charli D’Amelio and MrBeast, that adds up. A teen who hits their daily limit before they reach a sponsored post never sees it. A teen on a non-personalized feed may never encounter a creator they would have discovered through the algorithm.
Why Meta’s Settlement Complicates Existing DealsWhen a platform changes the rules mid-deal, the question of what either party can do about it comes down to the contract. And most brand-creator agreements were not drafted with platform-level disruption in mind.
The more immediate question for creators and brands is practical: if the audience you contracted to reach is no longer reachable in the same way, what does the contract say? For most existing deals, the honest answer is: not much. The settlement just changed the landscape. The contracts haven’t caught up yet.
Force majeure clauses excuse a party from performance when an unforeseeable external event like extreme weather or war makes performance impossible or impractical.
Meta’s settlement is a real-world event, but it’s unlikely to qualify as force majeure in most agreements, particularly in jurisdictions like California and New York where courts only grant excuses if the specific event is stated in the clause.
Frustration of purpose is a legal doctrine that says a contract can be discharged when an unforeseen event destroys the fundamental reason one party entered the agreement.
If a brand’s entire purpose in contracting with a teen-focused creator was to reach a teenage audience on Instagram and Meta’s new restrictions make that nearly impossible, there is an argument that the purpose of the deal has been frustrated. But it’s likely an uphill battle because courts apply this doctrine narrowly.
Play Puzzles & Games on Forbes
The TikTok And YouTube QuestionMeta’s settlement does more than change Instagram and Facebook. It attempts to set a standard for the entire industry.
As part of the agreement, Meta called on TikTok and YouTube to implement the same framework and pay $5.3 billion to match Meta’s withheld funds. Neither has agreed. Both have stayed silent publicly.
The migration risk is real. Teens who hit Instagram’s two-hour daily limit may simply move to TikTok or YouTube, which currently face no equivalent restrictions. For brands and creators, that raises a strategic question: if a creator’s teen audience migrates off Instagram, does a platform-specific deal still deliver what was promised?
Meta’s chief legal officer, C.J. Mahoney, acknowledged this directly, calling on competitors to join the framework immediately and noting that “teens move fluidly across dozens of apps.” The settlement works as intended only if the whole industry moves together. Right now, there is no indication it will.
What Nobody Knows YetWe don’t know how teens will respond or whether parents will simply override the defaults. We don’t know whether TikTok and YouTube will adopt similar measures voluntarily or wait to face their own litigation. And we don’t know whether any of these changes will actually reduce harm to children because, as critics have noted, the settlement doesn’t require Meta or the states to prove that they will.
What we do know is that the creator economy has operated for years on the assumption that Instagram’s teen audience is accessible, engaged and growing. That assumption is now in question. Creators and brands whose commercial relationships are built around reaching young audiences on Instagram should be thinking about this now before the disputes begin.
The law tends to lag behind technology. This settlement is an attempt to close one gap. In doing so, it may open several new ones.
Meta Platforms (META) big CapEx spend has yet to pay off in revenue, but the company is seeing growth in demand for ads as customers use A.I. to create new ads and positive conversions.
Earlier this week, Meta agreed to pay $18 billion and make sweeping changes to how minors access its social networks to settle a lawsuit brought by 29 states. But the eye-popping settlement figure wasn’t what caught the attention of the Equity podcast team. Instead, it was what Meta did next. The social media giant sent an open letter to TikTok and YouTube asking the companies to join it in setting industry-wide standards for teens, including daily time limits, blocking access to apps at night, and restricting notifications during school hours.
But will these other companies follow? The Equity team doesn’t think they will.
On this episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, Rebecca Bellan, Kirsten Korosec, and Sean O’Kane dig into the Meta settlement, what it could mean for other social media companies, and more of the week’s headlines.
Listen to the full episode to hear more about:
How investors are pouring money into robotics startups and driving up valuations. For instance, Generalist reached a $3 billion valuation, while General Intuition hit the $6 billion mark. Even though robotics is a hot sector, there is pain point: robots still lack the know-how to do value-creating work. What senior reporter Sean O’Kane discovered when he dug into OSHA data connected to robotaxi companies like Waymo and Zoox. What self-driving truck startup Gatik’s $200 million raise means for the sector. Hugging Face is reportedly being acquired by Nvidia. The team weighs in what this means for the industry. Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and wherever you get your podcasts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod.
Kirsten Korosec is a reporter and editor who has covered the future of transportation from EVs and autonomous vehicles to urban air mobility and in-car tech for more than a decade. She is currently the transportation editor at TechCrunch and co-host of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast. She is also co-founder and co-host of the podcast, “The Autonocast.” She previously wrote for Fortune, The Verge, Bloomberg, MIT Technology Review and CBS Interactive.
You can contact or verify outreach from Kirsten by emailing [email protected] or via encrypted message at kkorosec.07 on Signal.
Sean O’Kane is a reporter who has spent a decade covering the rapidly-evolving business and technology of the transportation industry, including Tesla and the many startups chasing Elon Musk. Most recently, he was a reporter at Bloomberg News where he helped break stories about some of the most notorious EV SPAC flops. He previously worked at The Verge, where he also covered consumer technology, hosted many short- and long-form videos, performed product and editorial photography, and once nearly passed out in a Red Bull Air Race plane.
You can contact or verify outreach from Sean by emailing [email protected] or via encrypted message at okane.01 on Signal.
Rebecca Bellan is a senior reporter at TechCrunch where she covers the business, policy, and emerging trends shaping artificial intelligence. Her work has also appeared in Forbes, Bloomberg, The Atlantic, The Daily Beast, and other publications.
You can contact or verify outreach from Rebecca by emailing [email protected] or via encrypted message at rebeccabellan.491 on Signal.
Meta Platforms (META) settling its child safety trial for about $16.7 billion is "the most important" development Angelo Zino sees for the Mag 7 company. Despite the 11-digit payment the social media giant will have to pay in the settlement, he says the overhang removal allows investors to focus more on fundamentals over headlines.
Space Exploration Technologies, better known as SpaceX, has seen its valuation fluctuate since going public just over two months ago. Its valuation hit $2.6 trillion just days after going public, but then sold off to a low of $1.4 trillion before rebounding to its current $1.8 trillion level (at the time of this writing). However, I think one stock could be worth more than SpaceX before 2026 is over, and it's currently valued at a lower level than anything SpaceX has traded at during its time on the public markets.
Meta Platforms (META +1.66%) is currently a $1.39 trillion company, but I think it could easily surpass SpaceX before 2026 is over for a handful of reasons, not all of them in its control.
Image source: Getty Images.
Does SpaceX deserve to be bigger than Meta? The first question investors need to ask is whether SpaceX logically deserves to be bigger than Meta. I think the answer to that question is a resounding "no."
First, let's look at what each company is doing right now. During Q2 2026, Meta Platforms' revenue totaled $60.8 billion, rising 28% year over year. It had rising expenses, which caused net income to shrink 14% year over year, but it still posted an impressive $15.8 billion profit. Those are figures you'd expect from a company valued at over $1 trillion, but it's nowhere near what SpaceX is producing.
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From a growth standpoint, SpaceX is beating Meta, with revenue rising 92% year over year. However, its revenue only totaled $7.8 billion, and it produced no net income to speak of. That's right: SpaceX's revenue is less than half of Meta's net income, yet SpaceX has a higher valuation.
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That doesn't make a lot of sense logically, even if SpaceX is growing at a rapid pace. Because of these mismatched figures, I wouldn't be surprised to see Meta end 2026 at a higher valuation than SpaceX, and it could occur in two ways.
Meta is cheap while SpaceX is expensive By the end of 2026, Meta will be bigger than SpaceX through one of two mechanisms. First, Meta Platforms could rise to have a reasonable valuation. Right now, Meta trades for 17.5 times forward earnings. For reference, the S&P 500 trades for 21.4 times forward earnings.
META PE Ratio (Forward) data by YCharts
That's a very low price, indicating that Meta is trading at the cheaper end of its usual valuation range. Some of its valuation woes are due to lackluster performance, but with Meta still growing rapidly and profits only falling due to the acquisition of major (AI) talent, I think this is just too low a price to pay for Meta's stock.
I think trading at a market-average valuation is more reasonable. If Meta could rise to 21.4 times forward earnings, that would represent a 22% rise (at the time of this writing), bringing Meta's market cap to $1.7 trillion, roughly where SpaceX is now.
However, by the end of 2026, I'd expect SpaceX's valuation to come down as well.
The SpaceX market is constantly being flooded with new shares as various lockup periods end. This increases the supply of stock available to trade, which could dilute demand enough that share prices sink. Furthermore, SpaceX is valued at an incredibly high level. Because we don't have 12 months' worth of results from SpaceX, valuing it on trailing results is impossible. If I utilize Wall Street analysts' projections, they estimate SpaceX will generate $44.6 billion in revenue during 2026. At today's current market cap, that prices SpaceX stock at nearly 40 times sales.
That's a very expensive price for any stock, even SpaceX. I think that figure will come down by the end of the year and potentially leave SpaceX as a trillion-dollar company, but only barely.
Meta Platforms is a viable business that generates serious profits, while SpaceX is a company that only has plans to do so. I think this will lead to Meta overtaking SpaceX in valuation by the end of the year, making now a better time to invest.
Meta Platforms META , the social-media, digital-advertising and artificial-intelligence powerhouse, climbed approximately 1.5% to $557.875 Monday afternoon while semiconductor selling dragged the Nasdaq lower. That divergence matters. Investors were buying Meta's proven AI revenue machine while dumping technology companies carrying heavier expectations.
The numbers explain the confidence. Second-quarter revenue rocketed 28% to $60.8 billion as AI-powered advertising tools lifted engagement and pricing. Then came the gut punch: free cash flow crashed 91% to $784 million as Meta accelerated its infrastructure spending.
At roughly 21 times trailing earnings, Meta remains cheaper than several mega-cap rivals growing more slowly. The valuation gap looks enormous, with the $557.875 share price sitting 33.74% below the $841.91 GF Value™ estimate. But cheap does not mean painless. Capital expenditures are exploding, and a multistate youth-safety trial could force changes to the recommendation systems that keep users scrolling. For now, the advertising engine is winning the argument.
Platforms could face fines of up to 10% of global revenue.
Meta Platforms Inc. (META, Financials) and Alphabet Inc. may face another regulatory issue. The New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon claimed his party will introduce social media bans for under-16s.
The suggested fines make this crucial for investors. According to Reuters, noncompliant platforms might be fined 10% of global revenue.
The measure would compel corporations to reasonably verify users' ages using account information, face technology, and digital identity documents. That would highlight Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.
Not only New Zealand would act. Australia banned under-16 social media, a model other countries could follow as kid safety and online addiction concerns grow.
One crucial note. The New Zealand idea is not yet legislation and may not pass. Luxon's coalition partner New Zealand First has opposed the bill. Travel direction matters.
If additional countries adopt age restrictions with substantial financial penalties, social media businesses may face increased compliance costs and fewer ways to entice younger members. Meta and Alphabet may face a wider regulatory risk from a local policy struggle.
Disclosures I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and have no plans to buy any new positions in the stocks mentioned within the next 72 hours.
Prominent artificial intelligence (AI) researcher Luke Metz has joined Superintelligence Labs at Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META, XETRA:FB2A, SIX:FB), the social media and technology company.
Metz starts at Meta this week and will report directly to Alexandr Wang, who heads the company's artificial intelligence development efforts.
The artificial intelligence unit overseen by Wang has debuted a number of new models for the company in recent months.
Metz is the latest leading researcher to jump between multiple rival frontier laboratories as part of the ongoing artificial intelligence talent wars.
The researcher previously left artificial intelligence firm OpenAI in 2024 to join Thinking Machines, an organization led by Mira Murati.
Metz had rejoined OpenAI earlier this year before deciding to move to Meta for his new role.
The appointment represents the latest major hire for Meta, which has maintained an active recruitment spree across the technology sector.
Meta launched that spree after paying billions in a deal with Scale AI that allowed Wang, its former chief executive officer, to join the company.
Metz's hiring was noted on social media platform X by poster ArfurGrok, who has accurately highlighted a number of recent artificial intelligence personnel moves.
A source familiar with the matter confirmed the appointment to Axios, the digital news organization.
Key Takeaways Meta's ad revenues rose 27% to $59.4 billion in the second quarter of 2026. AI tools lifted Facebook ad clicks 8.3% and conversions 15.7% in the quarter. Reddit and Snap also posted ad growth, rising 64% and 9%, respectively, in Q2. Meta Platforms (META - Free Report) is benefiting from strong growth in its advertising business, strengthening its competitive position against Reddit (RDDT - Free Report) and Snap (SNAP - Free Report) . The company’s AI-driven ad tools, expanding user engagement and large advertiser base continue to drive higher ad spending across its family of apps.
In the second quarter of 2026, Meta reported $59.4 billion in ad revenues, up 27% year over year, with a 14% increase in ad impressions and a 12% rise in average price per ad. This growth is underpinned by Meta’s ability to deliver highly engaging experiences across its platforms, which include Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads, reaching 3.6 billion daily active users.
A key driver behind this success is Meta Platforms’ investment in artificial intelligence, particularly large language models that enhance content recommendations and ad targeting. These AI-powered systems allow Meta Platforms to show more relevant content and ads, resulting in higher conversions and better performance for advertisers.
In the second quarter of 2026, the deployment of Meta Generative Recommender and other advanced models led to an 8.3% increase in ad clicks and a 15.7% uplift in conversions on Facebook. More than 9 million small businesses now use at least one of Meta’s AI-powered ad creative tools. Its Advantage+ AI-powered advertising solutions also surpassed a $75 billion annual revenue run rate in the quarter, highlighting growing advertiser adoption.
Meta expects continued gains from AI-powered recommendations and advertising optimization. With strong user engagement, expanding AI capabilities and a massive advertiser base, META appears well-positioned to maintain its advertising momentum and stay ahead of RDDT and SNAP. For the third quarter of 2026, Meta expects revenues between $61 billion and $64 billion.
How Competitors Fare Against METADespite Meta Platforms’ expanding portfolio, the company faces stiff competition from Reddit and Snap. Both companies are expanding their footprint in the rapidly growing digital ad market.
Reddit is benefiting from strong demand in its advertising business, which has become a key growth driver of the company’s impressive financial performance and future growth prospects. In the second quarter of 2026, Reddit’s advertising revenues grew 64% year over year to $762 million, outpacing even its impressive total revenue growth of 61%. This growth is broad-based, with strength across various sales channels, including large customers, mid-market and small and medium-sized businesses.
Snap’s strong advertising revenue has been a major growth driver for the company. In the second quarter of 2026, Snap’s advertising revenues rose 9% year over year to $1.28 billion, reflecting improved momentum with large advertisers in North America, broader adoption of the company’s AI-powered Smart Campaign Solutions and continued strength among small and medium-sized businesses.
META’s Share Price Performance, Valuation, and EstimatesMETA’s shares have lost 16.7% in the year-to-date period, underperforming the broader Zacks Computer & Technology sector’s return of 15.6%.
META Stock Performance
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
META shares are cheap, with a forward 12-month Price/Sales of 4.87X compared with the Computer & Technology sector’s 6.36X. META has a Value Score of B.
META Valuation
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2026 earnings is pegged at $31.90 per share, which has decreased 3.47% over the past 30 days. This suggests 35.80% year-over-year growth.
Meta Platforms currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Clare Market Investments LLC lowered its stake in shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META – Free Report) by 4.1% during the second quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the SEC. The fund owned 29,632 shares of the social networking company’s stock after selling 1,270 shares during the period. Meta Platforms accounts for 3.0% of Clare Market Investments LLC’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 6th largest position. Clare Market Investments LLC’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $16,691,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.
Other large investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. RHL Group LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms during the 4th quarter worth approximately $28,000. Strategic Wealth Advisors LLC acquired a new position in Meta Platforms in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $29,000. Advantage Trust Co acquired a new position in Meta Platforms in the second quarter valued at approximately $28,000. Safe Harbor Fiduciary LLC purchased a new position in Meta Platforms in the fourth quarter worth approximately $42,000. Finally, Axiom Investment Management LLC purchased a new position in Meta Platforms in the first quarter worth approximately $36,000. 79.91% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.
Meta Platforms Price Performance NASDAQ:META opened at $549.90 on Monday. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a 52 week low of $520.26 and a 52 week high of $790.80. The stock’s fifty day moving average is $593.51 and its two-hundred day moving average is $614.77. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.40 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 20.71, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.94 and a beta of 1.25. The company has a quick ratio of 2.23, a current ratio of 2.23 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32.
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META – Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, July 29th. The social networking company reported $6.18 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $7.19 by ($1.01). The firm had revenue of $60.80 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $60.22 billion. Meta Platforms had a net margin of 29.83% and a return on equity of 33.18%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 28.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $7.14 earnings per share. Research analysts anticipate that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 28.5 EPS for the current year. Meta Platforms Dividend Announcement The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, June 25th. Investors of record on Monday, June 15th were issued a dividend of $0.525 per share. This represents a $2.10 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.4%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, June 15th. Meta Platforms’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 7.91%.
Insider Transactions at Meta Platforms In other news, insider Curtis J. Mahoney sold 2,079 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, May 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $609.92, for a total transaction of $1,268,023.68. Following the sale, the insider owned 1,118 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $681,890.56. This represents a 65.03% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CTO Andrew Bosworth sold 7,848 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $558.00, for a total transaction of $4,379,184.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief technology officer directly owned 828 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $462,024. The trade was a 90.46% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 38,502 shares of company stock valued at $22,603,485. 13.53% of the stock is owned by insiders.
Wall Street Analyst Weigh In META has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. Mizuho set a $750.00 target price on Meta Platforms in a research report on Thursday, July 30th. UBS Group lowered their price target on Meta Platforms from $766.00 to $715.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, July 30th. Roth Capital reissued a “buy” rating on shares of Meta Platforms in a research report on Thursday, April 30th. Citigroup reduced their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $850.00 to $800.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, July 30th. Finally, Scotiabank reaffirmed a “sector perform” rating and issued a $600.00 target price on shares of Meta Platforms in a research report on Thursday, July 30th. Four investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-five have issued a Buy rating and eight have issued a Hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $785.32.
Get Our Latest Analysis on Meta Platforms
Trending Headlines about Meta Platforms Here are the key news stories impacting Meta Platforms this week:
Positive Sentiment: Meta launched Pocket in the U.S., an AI-powered app that lets users create and share interactive games through text prompts. The product could increase engagement and expand Meta’s consumer AI ecosystem. Meta brings Pocket to U.S. users Positive Sentiment: Meta introduced a Mac app for Meta AI with system-wide dictation and screen-aware assistance. The company is also pricing its new Muse Code coding agent below Anthropic and OpenAI offerings, potentially helping it attract developers and build AI adoption. Meta AI launches Mac app Positive Sentiment: Meta’s core advertising business remains strong, with quarterly revenue rising 28% year over year to $60.8 billion. AI-related improvements to recommendations and ad delivery are supporting engagement, clicks and conversion efficiency. Meta drawdown analysis Neutral Sentiment: Meta is contesting the Federal Trade Commission’s effort to revive monopoly charges. The company argues that Facebook and Instagram users increasingly see recommended content rather than posts from friends, a defense that could influence the case’s regulatory implications. Meta fights FTC monopoly charges Neutral Sentiment: Meta’s CTO Andrew Bosworth, CFO Susan Li and insider Curtis Mahoney sold shares worth roughly $10.3 million in aggregate under pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 plans. The transactions are limited as discretionary signals but may still affect investor sentiment. Meta insider transaction filing Negative Sentiment: Child-safety and social-media addiction litigation is intensifying. Testimony alleging that some safety tools were “designed to fail” raises the possibility of major damages, mandated product changes, restrictions on engagement features and pressure on advertising monetization. Meta social media lawsuit trial Negative Sentiment: Investors remain concerned that heavier AI capital spending will depress second-half free cash flow and increase financial pressure. Those concerns follow Meta’s quarterly EPS miss, despite its revenue beat, and have contributed to the stock’s year-to-date weakness. Meta stock investment analysis Meta Platforms Company Profile (Free Report)
Meta Platforms, Inc (NASDAQ: META), formerly Facebook, Inc, is a global technology company best known for building social networking services and immersive computing platforms. Founded in 2004 and headquartered in Menlo Park, California, the company operates a family of consumer-facing products and services that connect users, creators and businesses. In October 2021 the company rebranded as Meta to reflect an expanded strategic focus on augmented and virtual reality technologies alongside its social media businesses.
Meta’s core consumer products include Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, which enable social networking, messaging, content sharing and community building across mobile and desktop devices.
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Florida Trust Wealth Management Co reduced its stake in Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META – Free Report) by 9.4% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 46,914 shares of the social networking company’s stock after selling 4,881 shares during the period. Florida Trust Wealth Management Co’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $26,426,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.
Several other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in META. First National Bank Sioux Falls boosted its position in Meta Platforms by 0.7% during the 4th quarter. First National Bank Sioux Falls now owns 2,001 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $1,321,000 after purchasing an additional 14 shares during the period. Levin Capital Strategies L.P. increased its position in Meta Platforms by 1.4% in the fourth quarter. Levin Capital Strategies L.P. now owns 984 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $649,000 after buying an additional 14 shares during the period. Vista Capital Partners Inc. increased its position in Meta Platforms by 1.3% in the second quarter. Vista Capital Partners Inc. now owns 1,075 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $794,000 after buying an additional 14 shares during the period. Arcataur Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in Meta Platforms by 0.9% in the fourth quarter. Arcataur Capital Management LLC now owns 1,736 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $1,146,000 after buying an additional 15 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Acorn Creek Capital LLC lifted its stake in Meta Platforms by 0.7% in the fourth quarter. Acorn Creek Capital LLC now owns 2,118 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $1,398,000 after buying an additional 15 shares during the last quarter. 79.91% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.
Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades Several equities analysts have recently commented on META shares. Phillip Securities upgraded shares of Meta Platforms to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Monday, August 3rd. UBS Group cut their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $766.00 to $715.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, July 30th. TD Cowen reduced their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $800.00 to $750.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, July 30th. Roth Capital restated a “buy” rating on shares of Meta Platforms in a research report on Thursday, April 30th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus decreased their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $805.00 to $780.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, May 1st. Four analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-five have issued a Buy rating and eight have given a Hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $785.32.
Get Our Latest Stock Report on META Meta Platforms Price Performance NASDAQ META opened at $549.90 on Monday. The business’s fifty day moving average is $593.51 and its two-hundred day moving average is $614.77. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.40 trillion, a P/E ratio of 20.71, a P/E/G ratio of 0.94 and a beta of 1.25. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32, a quick ratio of 2.23 and a current ratio of 2.23. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a 1 year low of $520.26 and a 1 year high of $790.80.
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META – Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 29th. The social networking company reported $6.18 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $7.19 by ($1.01). The firm had revenue of $60.80 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $60.22 billion. Meta Platforms had a net margin of 29.83% and a return on equity of 33.18%. The firm’s revenue was up 28.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the company posted $7.14 EPS. On average, research analysts forecast that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 28.5 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.
Meta Platforms Dividend Announcement The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, June 25th. Shareholders of record on Monday, June 15th were paid a dividend of $0.525 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, June 15th. This represents a $2.10 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.4%. Meta Platforms’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is 7.91%.
Insider Activity at Meta Platforms In other news, COO Javier Olivan sold 3,348 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, July 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $600.97, for a total value of $2,012,047.56. Following the transaction, the chief operating officer directly owned 9,498 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $5,708,013.06. This represents a 26.06% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, insider Curtis J. Mahoney sold 2,079 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, May 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $609.92, for a total transaction of $1,268,023.68. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider directly owned 1,118 shares in the company, valued at $681,890.56. This trade represents a 65.03% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. In the last quarter, insiders have sold 38,502 shares of company stock valued at $22,603,485. Insiders own 13.53% of the company’s stock.
Key Headlines Impacting Meta Platforms Here are the key news stories impacting Meta Platforms this week:
Positive Sentiment: Meta launched Pocket in the U.S., an AI-powered app that lets users create and share interactive games through text prompts. The product could increase engagement and expand Meta’s consumer AI ecosystem. Meta brings Pocket to U.S. users Positive Sentiment: Meta introduced a Mac app for Meta AI with system-wide dictation and screen-aware assistance. The company is also pricing its new Muse Code coding agent below Anthropic and OpenAI offerings, potentially helping it attract developers and build AI adoption. Meta AI launches Mac app Positive Sentiment: Meta’s core advertising business remains strong, with quarterly revenue rising 28% year over year to $60.8 billion. AI-related improvements to recommendations and ad delivery are supporting engagement, clicks and conversion efficiency. Meta drawdown analysis Neutral Sentiment: Meta is contesting the Federal Trade Commission’s effort to revive monopoly charges. The company argues that Facebook and Instagram users increasingly see recommended content rather than posts from friends, a defense that could influence the case’s regulatory implications. Meta fights FTC monopoly charges Neutral Sentiment: Meta’s CTO Andrew Bosworth, CFO Susan Li and insider Curtis Mahoney sold shares worth roughly $10.3 million in aggregate under pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 plans. The transactions are limited as discretionary signals but may still affect investor sentiment. Meta insider transaction filing Negative Sentiment: Child-safety and social-media addiction litigation is intensifying. Testimony alleging that some safety tools were “designed to fail” raises the possibility of major damages, mandated product changes, restrictions on engagement features and pressure on advertising monetization. Meta social media lawsuit trial Negative Sentiment: Investors remain concerned that heavier AI capital spending will depress second-half free cash flow and increase financial pressure. Those concerns follow Meta’s quarterly EPS miss, despite its revenue beat, and have contributed to the stock’s year-to-date weakness. Meta stock investment analysis Meta Platforms Company Profile (Free Report)
Meta Platforms, Inc (NASDAQ: META), formerly Facebook, Inc, is a global technology company best known for building social networking services and immersive computing platforms. Founded in 2004 and headquartered in Menlo Park, California, the company operates a family of consumer-facing products and services that connect users, creators and businesses. In October 2021 the company rebranded as Meta to reflect an expanded strategic focus on augmented and virtual reality technologies alongside its social media businesses.
Meta’s core consumer products include Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, which enable social networking, messaging, content sharing and community building across mobile and desktop devices.
Read More Five stocks we like better than Meta Platforms VIG, VYM, and VYMI: Which Vanguard Dividend ETF Is Right for You? 3 Closed-End Funds to Maximize Dividend Payments Rocket Lab’s Sell-Off Is Fading—Is It Finally Safe to Buy? $27 Billion in Buybacks: 3 Stocks Betting Their Strong Runs Aren’t Over Want to see what other hedge funds are holding META? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META – Free Report).
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Capstone Wealth Management Group Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META – Free Report) during the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm bought 3,317 shares of the social networking company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,869,000. Meta Platforms comprises 1.1% of Capstone Wealth Management Group Inc.’s investment portfolio, making the stock its 19th largest holding.
Other hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Ashton Thomas Securities LLC raised its stake in Meta Platforms by 17.4% during the 1st quarter. Ashton Thomas Securities LLC now owns 18,000 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $10,299,000 after buying an additional 2,670 shares during the last quarter. Keybank National Association OH lifted its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms by 15.7% during the 4th quarter. Keybank National Association OH now owns 133,798 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $88,319,000 after buying an additional 18,169 shares during the period. WMS Group LLC purchased a new position in shares of Meta Platforms in the 4th quarter worth $876,000. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Meta Platforms by 3.8% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 199,995,630 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $132,015,115,000 after buying an additional 7,269,279 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Czech National Bank grew its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms by 4.9% in the second quarter. Czech National Bank now owns 625,079 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $352,101,000 after acquiring an additional 29,411 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 79.91% of the company’s stock.
Analysts Set New Price Targets META has been the subject of a number of research reports. Raymond James Financial upped their price objective on Meta Platforms from $825.00 to $850.00 and gave the company a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 21st. Citigroup dropped their target price on Meta Platforms from $850.00 to $800.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, July 30th. KeyCorp cut their price target on Meta Platforms from $790.00 to $780.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, July 30th. Wedbush reduced their price target on shares of Meta Platforms from $671.00 to $595.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Thursday, July 30th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company lowered their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $835.00 to $640.00 and set an “overweight” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, July 30th. Four analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-five have issued a Buy rating and eight have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Meta Platforms has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $785.32.
Check Out Our Latest Report on Meta Platforms Meta Platforms Price Performance NASDAQ META opened at $549.90 on Monday. The business’s fifty day moving average is $593.51 and its 200 day moving average is $614.77. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $520.26 and a fifty-two week high of $790.80. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.32, a quick ratio of 2.23 and a current ratio of 2.23. The company has a market capitalization of $1.40 trillion, a PE ratio of 20.71, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.94 and a beta of 1.25.
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META – Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, July 29th. The social networking company reported $6.18 EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $7.19 by ($1.01). Meta Platforms had a return on equity of 33.18% and a net margin of 29.83%.The company had revenue of $60.80 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $60.22 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $7.14 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 28.0% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts predict that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 28.5 earnings per share for the current year.
Meta Platforms Announces Dividend The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, June 25th. Investors of record on Monday, June 15th were paid a dividend of $0.525 per share. The ex-dividend date was Monday, June 15th. This represents a $2.10 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 0.4%. Meta Platforms’s payout ratio is 7.91%.
Key Meta Platforms News Here are the key news stories impacting Meta Platforms this week:
Positive Sentiment: Meta launched Pocket in the U.S., an AI-powered app that lets users create and share interactive games through text prompts. The product could increase engagement and expand Meta’s consumer AI ecosystem. Meta brings Pocket to U.S. users Positive Sentiment: Meta introduced a Mac app for Meta AI with system-wide dictation and screen-aware assistance. The company is also pricing its new Muse Code coding agent below Anthropic and OpenAI offerings, potentially helping it attract developers and build AI adoption. Meta AI launches Mac app Positive Sentiment: Meta’s core advertising business remains strong, with quarterly revenue rising 28% year over year to $60.8 billion. AI-related improvements to recommendations and ad delivery are supporting engagement, clicks and conversion efficiency. Meta drawdown analysis Neutral Sentiment: Meta is contesting the Federal Trade Commission’s effort to revive monopoly charges. The company argues that Facebook and Instagram users increasingly see recommended content rather than posts from friends, a defense that could influence the case’s regulatory implications. Meta fights FTC monopoly charges Neutral Sentiment: Meta’s CTO Andrew Bosworth, CFO Susan Li and insider Curtis Mahoney sold shares worth roughly $10.3 million in aggregate under pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 plans. The transactions are limited as discretionary signals but may still affect investor sentiment. Meta insider transaction filing Negative Sentiment: Child-safety and social-media addiction litigation is intensifying. Testimony alleging that some safety tools were “designed to fail” raises the possibility of major damages, mandated product changes, restrictions on engagement features and pressure on advertising monetization. Meta social media lawsuit trial Negative Sentiment: Investors remain concerned that heavier AI capital spending will depress second-half free cash flow and increase financial pressure. Those concerns follow Meta’s quarterly EPS miss, despite its revenue beat, and have contributed to the stock’s year-to-date weakness. Meta stock investment analysis Insider Buying and Selling In other Meta Platforms news, CTO Andrew Bosworth sold 7,848 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $558.00, for a total transaction of $4,379,184.00. Following the sale, the chief technology officer owned 828 shares in the company, valued at approximately $462,024. This trade represents a 90.46% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, COO Javier Olivan sold 1,258 shares of Meta Platforms stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, August 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $600.00, for a total transaction of $754,800.00. Following the transaction, the chief operating officer directly owned 1,517 shares in the company, valued at $910,200. This represents a 45.33% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders sold a total of 38,502 shares of company stock worth $22,603,485 in the last ninety days. Corporate insiders own 13.53% of the company’s stock.
About Meta Platforms (Free Report)
Meta Platforms, Inc (NASDAQ: META), formerly Facebook, Inc, is a global technology company best known for building social networking services and immersive computing platforms. Founded in 2004 and headquartered in Menlo Park, California, the company operates a family of consumer-facing products and services that connect users, creators and businesses. In October 2021 the company rebranded as Meta to reflect an expanded strategic focus on augmented and virtual reality technologies alongside its social media businesses.
Meta’s core consumer products include Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, which enable social networking, messaging, content sharing and community building across mobile and desktop devices.
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The latest round of Form 13Fs has dropped, and that means investors get to see what billionaire hedge fund managers were up to during the second quarter. One popular stock to buy was Meta Platforms (META +0.75%), and two prominent billionaire hedge fund managers bought the stock. Bill Ackman at Pershing Square increased their stake by 20% during the quarter, and it now makes up nearly 10% of its holdings. David Tepper of Appaloosa Management increased his Meta stake by more than 50%, and it now makes up a 5% position in his portfolio.
That's two smart investors dumping a lot of money into Meta's stock, but that information is now a bit old. The 13F filing reveals only what a firm's positions were as of June 30. Since June 30, Meta's stock is actually down 3% from where it ended the quarter. However, these two could have bought at any time during Q2. Since April 1, Meta's stock is down around 6%.
So right now is actually a better buying opportunity than during any time in Q2. Is Meta still a buy?
Image source: Getty Images.
Meta's Q2 was a bit lackluster Prior to Q2's earnings announcement, Meta stock was actually on the rise during the start of July, leading to quick short-term gains for these two investors. However, that all came crashing down following a poorly received earnings report. While Meta's revenue soared 28% during Q2, its costs increased by 55%, leading to shrinking operating profits. The market wasn't impressed by this or its spending plans and sold the stock off as a result.
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There are also questions circling about Meta's long-term plans for all its artificial intelligence (AI) computing infrastructure investments, which led to CEO Mark Zuckerberg releasing a massive document on Meta's AI plans. But it didn't give a rock-solid path for Meta to start monetizing its AI business, which the market is begging for.
All of this has caused Meta's stock to be priced very cheaply, as the market is growing skeptical of Meta's path.
META PE Ratio (Forward) data by YCharts
At 17.5 times forward earnings, it's far cheaper than the 21.4 times forward earnings the S&P 500 (^GSPC +0.43%) trades at. With Meta's future expectations below those of the broader market, I think it's clear that the market is not happy with Meta.
However, that could be exactly why Ackman and Tepper bought the stock. These two are known to be value investors and scoop up deals when they see them. They are presumably playing the long game with Meta's stock, confident that it will eventually become a viable AI business. Time will tell if they're right, but if they are, Meta's stock has massive upside based on the low price it's trading at now.
I think Meta could be a great deal at these levels, but it's far from a surefire bet.
Zbigniew Stankowski (left) stands with Shuayb Qureshi, a Meta employee, at Star Deli. Lloyd Mitchell for BI Shuayb Qureshi didn't know many people in New York, and his work at Meta made it hard for him to find new friends.
So, on a whim, the now-31-year-old software engineer started posting videos on Instagram.
"I'm like, maybe I can record myself doing some sort of stuff like that, talking to strangers," Qureshi recalled on a recent Saturday in Brooklyn. "I just wanted to express myself socially."
Qureshi's videos have racked up millions of views and transformed the once-shy, nerdy coder into an influencer who is now occasionally recognized on the street.
Shuayb Qureshi stands on Nassau Street in Brooklyn. Lloyd Mitchell for BI This year, Qureshi shifted from what he described as "tech bro" content to restaurant reviews, for which he dons Meta glasses, enters little-known food joints in Brooklyn and Queens, and asks for whatever the owner recommends.
One video Qureshi made in June, spotlighting a Polish bakery struggling to stay afloat in a competitive market, went viral, garnering over a million views, and helped the owner keep his store open.
"It gives me a natural human high," Qureshi said.
From Meta burnout to New York influencerAs a child growing up in Kuwait and then Toronto, Qureshi described himself as outgoing. "I would just talk to anyone," he said.
When he started working at Meta, though, Qureshi said he lost a lot of his "social flow." He lived in an apartment complex in Menlo Park with several other Meta engineers. The company would send vans to transport them to and from the office each day.
Feeling a strong sense of "imposter syndrome," Qureshi said he put his head down and worked around the clock to prove he belonged at one of the world's leading technology companies.
"I was really stressed out," he recalled. "I forgot what it was like to talk to strangers."
A passerby recognizes Qureshi on the street, shouting, "You're the guy!" Lloyd Mitchell for BI In this struggle, Qureshi is not alone. Tech workers across the country are feeling higher levels of burnout and lower levels of optimism about future career opportunities. AI, which Qureshi said is now a big part of his job, has also made some engineers feel guilty for creating technology that could undermine thousands of human jobs.
Software engineers are also being laid off at higher rates, including at Meta. In May, the company laid off 8,000 employees, mostly managers and software engineers. That month, Qureshi made a video talking about the stress of hearing rumors about possible layoffs at his company.
"A lot of my routine goals and even my identity is kind of tied to this place," he says in the video. "When I hear these bum-ass rumors, a part of me is like, yo, what the heck is the point of locking in this hard if I could just get fired?"
For Qureshi, making videos where he talks to random strangers became a way to reclaim some of what he felt he had lost as he built his career in tech.
"It just gets me out of my head," he said.
Saving a Polish bakeryIn many of Qureshi's videos, the eateries he patronizes appear empty. Qureshi said he typically picks restaurants based on DMs from people who tell him a business needs support. In one case, he said, a lead came after he posted on Reddit.
"Somebody DM'd me saying that, 'Hey, this restaurant is struggling. Can you go there?'" Qureshi recalled.
Zbigniew Stankowski, the owner of Star Deli, works behind the counter. Lloyd Mitchell for BI The redditor told him to go to a Polish bakery called "Star Deli" on Nassau Street in the North Brooklyn neighborhood of Greenpoint, which its owner said was only months away from closing earlier this summer.
"The situation was very bad," Zbigniew Stankowski said on a recent Saturday from behind the counter, upon which sat loaves of freshly-baked bread. "The summer was coming. People go on vacation. It was flat."
"And then, after him," Stankowski said as he gave Qureshi a playful sock in the shoulder, "it's much better, much better."
The first video Qureshi made with "Mr. Z," as he calls him, has since racked up 1.5 million views and over 100,000 likes. In the video, which Qureshi posted on June 9, Stankowski talks about the difficulties of running a bakery and tries to refuse Qureshi's tip for a cheesecake purchase.
In a follow-up video posted five days later, Stankowski shakes Qureshi's hand and appears incredulous that so many people had seen the video.
"People see the story and then they're attracted to the story," Qureshi said. "I feel like, you know, my faith in humanity is restored."
Soon after the videos began to go viral, Qureshi started an online fundraiser for Stankowski to pay for a new freezer, among other upgrades around the store. The fundraiser has since raised over $7,000.
"This guy is so good, man!" Stankowksi said on Saturday.
Read next
Truman Dickerson is the Weekend News Fellow at Business Insider, based in New York City. He covers trending tech and business news. He previously reported for The Boston Globe's Express Desk. He graduated from Boston University, where he served as editor in chief of The Daily Free Press, BU's student-run newspaper.Contact him at [email protected]
Americký prezident Donald Trump se v nakupování cenných papírů činí i v létě. Z nově zveřejněného finančního přiznání amerického Úřadu pro vládní etiku (Office of Government Ethics) vyplývá, že v červnu provedl více než tisíc transakcí, přičemž celková hodnota obchodů se pohybovala mezi 78 až 263 miliony dolary. Dokument uvádí u jednotlivých transakcí pouze hodnotová pásma, nikoliv přesné částky.
Mezi největší obchody se zařadil prodej podílu v ETF od společnosti Vanguard, jehož hodnota se pohybovala mezi pěti a 25 miliony dolarů. Významné pak byly nákupy akcií společností Berkshire Hathaway, Visa, Mastercard či Cintas, informovala agentura Bloomberg.
Trump, respektive nezávislí manažeři spravující jeho portfolio, provedli také sérii obchodů s akciemi Palantiru. Začátkem června nejprve nakoupili menší objem akcií, následně část pozice během měsíce prodali a po oznámení dohody mezi Spojenými státy a Íránem se k nákupům znovu vrátili, všiml si Bloomberg.
V případě Berkshire Hathaway prezident v polovině června nakoupil akcie v hodnotě až několika milionů dolarů a později část pozice prodal. Třeba u Mety Platforms naopak nejprve prodával v objemu jednoho až pěti milionů dolarů a následně ke konci měsíce opět menší objemy dokupoval. V seznamu obchodovaných společností se objevily rovněž Coinbase či Home Depot.
Podle zveřejněných dokumentů Trump v průběhu celého roku 2025 uskutečnil více než 21 tisíc obchodů s cennými papíry. Jejich souhrnná hodnota se pohybovala mezi 600 miliony a 1,86 miliardy dolarů. V některých případech přiznání ukazuje nákupy a prodeje stejného titulu uskutečněné ve stejný den.
Bílý dům odmítá, že by rozsah obchodní aktivity představoval střet zájmů. Administrativa zdůrazňuje, že investiční portfolio prezidenta spravují nezávislí manažeři bez jeho přímého vlivu. Podle mluvčího Bílého domu Davise Inglea jsou aktiva držena na diskrečních účtech a investována prostřednictvím modelových portfolií, která automaticky kopírují vybrané akciové indexy.
„Ani prezident Trump, ani žádný člen jeho rodiny nemá žádnou možnost řídit, ovlivňovat nebo poskytovat informace ohledně toho, jak je v rámci portfolia investováno nebo kdy jsou investice nakupovány či prodávány. Veškerá investiční rozhodnutí činí výhradně nezávislí manažeři,“ uvedl mluvčí.
Také Eric Trump, výkonný viceprezident Trump Organization a Trumpův syn, už dříve uvedl, že majetek je veden v blind trustu.
