Meta Platforms META shares are in the spotlight on July 17th following reports that the tech giant is in preliminary discussions to lease out its computing infrastructure to AI research lab Anthropic.
The blockbuster deal rumoured to be worth up to $10 billion arrives at a time when Meta sits firmly above its major moving averages (MAs) – with an RSI in the mid-50s indicating intense buying pressure.
That said, Meta stock is currently trading at roughly the same price at which it started 2026.
According to anonymous sources that spoke with CNBC today, Anthropic is exploring buying raw computing capacity from Meta to scale its advanced AI models, including its flagship model Fable.
Amidst “industry-wide” shortages of Nvidia’s cutting-edge hardware, the AI research lab has been aggressively hunting for external compute power, having recently inked a similar deal with SpaceX and its Colossus 1 data center.
To prepare for an aggressive venture into cloud hosting, Meta Platforms has strategically fortified its internal operational leadership.
The company recently named former Amazon Web Services (AWS) senior executive Dave Brown as its new head of infrastructure, signaling deep commercial intent.
This potential partnership represents a bullish structural catalyst for Meta shares because it directly addresses the investment community’s primary fear: unmitigated overspending.
The multinational stunned the market earlier this year by accelerating its full-year capex guidance to a staggering range of $125 billion to $145 billion, dedicated almost entirely to massive AI data center buildouts.
Transitioning from a pure consumer-facing platform into a premium wholesale compute provider will enable Meta to seamlessly transform its excess server capacity from a heavy financial liability into an immediate, high-margin enterprise cash flow machine, silencing critics.
Meta’s new business segment is particularly significant given the stock is currently trading at 23x forward earnings, which many believe is inexpensive for an established AI beneficiary.
Ultimately, opening Meta’s world-class AI infrastructure to third-party developers like Anthropic fundamentally re-engineers the long-term investment thesis for the stock.
Rather than forcing shareholders to wait for AI to subtly optimize core digital advertising yields – this development marks the birth of a tangible, recurring B2B enterprise cloud business.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg previously hinted at this massive opportunity, revealing that external tech firms regularly ask to purchase Meta’s compute at a premium.
As META successfully weaponizes its unprecedented capital outlays into a dominant cloud hosting powerhouse, its stock is primed for a powerful, growth-driven rebound.
Note that Wall Street analysts remain bullish as ever on META shares for the remainder of 2026.
The consensus rating on the titan sits at Strong Buy currently, with the mean price target of about $823 indicating more than 25% upside from here.
I keep hitting the buy button on Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META | META Price Prediction), and I am not embarrassed to say the last add was this week. When a company earns $26.77 billion in net income in a single quarter while reaching 3.56 billion daily users, I stop looking for cleverer trades and start acting like an owner.
The pull, in human terms, is that Mark Zuckerberg has turned Meta into a company that prints cash from its Family of Apps while paying itself to build the next platform. Q1 2026 operating cash flow was $32.23 billion. That is the machine that funds everything else, and it is the reason I keep adding.
Reason One: Structural Cost Efficiency in AI Infrastructure Meta is building its future in-house. The Hyperion data center in Louisiana is now projected to exceed $50 billion for a 5 GW facility, with over $1.6 billion in local contracts already awarded. Zuckerberg told analysts that “one of the primary goals of our Meta compute initiative is to lead the industry in efficiency of building compute, and we expect that will be a strategic advantage over time.” The $125 to $145 billion 2026 capex range reads as scary until you notice $107 billion in new contractual commitments locking in supply through 2027.
Reason Two: Monetization Engines Beyond Ads The core ad engine is still cranking. Ad impressions rose 19% year over year and average price per ad climbed 12%. That alone would justify my position. Then JPMorgan flagged that Meta’s new Model API is priced 75% cheaper than OpenAI and Anthropic, described as Meta’s first real step toward monetizing AI outside advertising. Business AI conversations grew from 1 million to 10 million weekly since the start of the year, and partnership ads reached a $10 billion annual run rate. Multiple new revenue vectors are stacking behind an ad business already growing at 33% year over year.
Reason Three: Vertical Integration Nobody Else Owns Meta is rolling out more than one gigawatt of custom silicon developed with Broadcom, layering in AMD and NVIDIA, and just signed a multi-year agreement with Qualcomm for data center CPUs. On the consumer side, AI glasses users are tripling year over year, which Susan Li called one of the fastest-growing consumer electronics categories ever.
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Why Not the Obvious Alternatives Snap and Pinterest are the usual defaults for social ad exposure, but I stick with Meta because Meta’s 41.44% operating margin, 82.00% gross margin, and 30.24% return on equity are the numbers of a category owner, and its P/E of 24 with PEG of 0.949 is not a premium to that quality. Alphabet is a fine business, but I already own Meta’s superior ROE and I do not need to pay for a second ad engine to get AI exposure.
The Real Risk Reality Labs lost $4.03 billion in Q1 2026 and $19.2 billion for full-year 2025. Add youth-related litigation with additional trials in 2026 and the capex acceleration, and this is not a sleepy compounder. The reason it has not changed my thesis is net debt to EBITDA of 0.471 and interest coverage of 71.48x. Meta can absorb losses others cannot.
The buy button stays active because Meta owns the users, the cash flow, the silicon, and the timeline. I keep buying because the receipts keep arriving.
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I keep buying Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META | META Price Prediction), and I am not planning to stop. Every time the market gives me a window, I add. The reason is simple: this company is quietly turning frontier AI into a commodity it owns the pricing power on, and the market has not fully repriced what that means for a business already throwing off the cash flows Meta is throwing off.
The thesis, in plain English: agentic AI tasks burn 5 to 30 times more tokens per task than static chatbots, and Meta’s answer is to let enterprises sidestep per-token API bills entirely through its open-weight Llama ecosystem paired with the new Muse Spark 1.1 architecture. Zuckerberg himself framed the goal as delivering “agents that can understand your goals and then work day and night to help you achieve them”. When the cheapest tool-use model in the industry is also the one wired into 3.56 billion daily users, that is a moat I want to keep buying.
The Receipts First, the earnings machine. Q1 FY26 delivered $10.44 in EPS against a $6.6587 estimate, on revenue of $56.311 billion, up 33.08% year over year. Ad impressions rose 19% while average price per ad rose 12%. That is 5 quarters of consecutive EPS beats.
Second, the returns on that capital. Gross margin sits at 82.0%, operating margin at 41.4%, and ROE at 30.24%. I am paying a P/E of 24 for that, with a forward multiple of 21x. That is the multiple of a mispriced compounder.
Third, the balance sheet lets Meta swing. Debt to equity of 0.39, interest coverage of 71.48x, and operating cash flow of $32.226 billion in a single quarter mean the $125 to $145 billion 2026 capex plan, including the $50 billion-plus Hyperion 5 GW facility, gets funded without breaking the model.
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Why Not Alphabet The obvious alternative is Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL). I own some. I keep adding to Meta instead because, as a recent Motley Fool comparison put it, “Meta offers greater upside potential due to faster growth and lower valuation”. Meta’s 33.08% revenue growth against a 24 P/E is the trade I want. Alphabet has Cloud, but it also has search under agentic-AI assault. Meta has no legacy business to defend.
The Risk I Am Not Ignoring Reality Labs bled $4.03 billion in operating losses last quarter, and total costs are running 35% YoY higher. Capex could get worse before it gets better. What steadies me is that Q1 operating income still climbed 30.29% to $22.872 billion while all that spending was happening. The core ad engine is paying for the AI build in real time.
The Forward Conviction Business AI conversations grew from 1 million at the start of the year to more than 10 million each week, and the value optimization suite is running at an annual revenue run rate of over $20 billion. UBS carries a $766 price target; consensus sits at $826.63. I buy because a company earning 30% on equity, growing revenue in the thirties, and building the cheapest agentic-AI stack in the industry is worth owning for the next decade. The buy button stays active.
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Meta Platforms (META 3.07%) stock tumbled 5.3% through 11:20 a.m. ET Friday amid a tech sell-off that's dragging down the Nasdaq by about 1.5%. You can probably blame banker BMO for that.
Or at least for the Meta part of the sell-off.
Image source: Getty Images.
BMO is "meh" on Meta BMO analyst Brian Pitz reiterated his market perform (i.e., hold) rating and $720 price target on Meta stock this morning. That doesn't sound like bad news -- Meta stock trades below $630 per share, so a $720 PT suggests the stock could rise 14% over the next 12 months.
And yet, Pitz isn't telling investors to buy Meta stock. Why not?
On the one hand, the analyst likes Meta's efforts to launch a cloud computing business centered on artificial intelligence -- but he does have concerns about the cost. Meta's expected to spend $140 billion on capital investment this year, yet has precious little to show for the investment.
"META has the least visible AI ROI story," warns Pitz, even as governments globally threaten its core business by restricting use of Meta's core social media products in an effort to curb societal ills surrounding children.
Today's Change
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644.14
What's next for Meta The regulatory risk seems to me the biggest concern for Meta, as it threatens the company's cash cow -- the source of all the money Meta is currently pouring into AI investment. The good news is that, so long as this cow remains alive and kicking, Meta can afford the investment; free cash flow for the past 12 months was still a healthy $49.4 billion.
The better news is that if Meta ever ratchets back its AI spending, free cash flow could easily double to $100 billion or better. On a $1.7 trillion market cap, that could be enough to make Meta stock a buy.
Rich Smith has positions in Meta Platforms. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Meta Platforms. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Meta Platforms (META 3.99%) has been investing heavily in building artificial intelligence (AI) data centers to power its social media properties and advertising platforms, and it isn't relying solely on chips from external vendors to support its infrastructure build-out.
Reuters recently accessed an internal Meta memo revealing that the company is poised to begin producing a new AI chip starting in September. The Magnificent Seven company will use this chip to double its AI compute capacity to 14 gigawatts (GW) by next year. The news agency also noted that Meta has built an ecosystem of suppliers to support the development of its in-house chips, and Sandisk (SNDK 2.06%) is among them.
Let's see why this high-flying memory stock could get a solid boost from Meta Platforms' in-house AI chip.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
Meta Platforms has reportedly entered into a long-term supply agreement with Sandisk Memory chips are in short supply. Industry giant SK Hynix estimates that the shortage could last for the next four to five years, with wafer demand expected to exceed supply by 20%. This explains why hyperscalers such as Meta are trying to lock-in long-term supply of memory chips.
The memo seen by Reuters points out that Meta has struck a long-term agreement with Sandisk to procure flash storage for its data centers. It is easy to see why Meta has taken this step. Online tech publication The Next Platform notes that a total of 25 exabytes (an exabyte equals one billion gigabytes) of flash capacity is needed to deploy 1 GW of AI data center compute capacity.
Given that Meta is planning to significantly upgrade its AI data center capacity by next year, and it also plans to develop four generations of its in-house AI accelerators, the company needs access to a lot of flash storage. This is where Sandisk comes into play, given its position as the fifth-largest supplier of NAND flash memory.
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What's worth noting is that Sandisk has signed multiple long-term supply agreements lately. The company noted in its April earnings call that it signed five multi-year supply agreements, three in the third quarter of fiscal 2026 and two after the quarter ended. The three agreements it signed last quarter will help it generate at least $42 billion in revenue.
Sandisk management also remarked that it expects to "conclude additional agreements over the next few months," and the reported Meta deal suggests that it is indeed making progress on this front.
The long-term agreements should ensure more upside for Sandisk investors Sandisk stock has skyrocketed 538% in 2026, as of this writing. The multi-year agreements suggest that further upside could be in the cards. The $42 billion revenue pipeline that Sandisk disclosed last quarter is well above the company's trailing-twelve-month revenue of $13.2 billion. Moreover, it hasn't disclosed the value of the two other deals it closed after the year ended.
Moreover, the additional contracts that Sandisk expects to land, including the one with Meta, should help increase its revenue pipeline. Another important point worth noting is that Sandisk has included a variable pricing rider in these long-term agreements, which will help it "capture upside if prices rise."
As the memory shortage is poised to continue, there is a strong likelihood of Sandisk benefiting from higher prices. That's why analysts have been boosting their earnings expectations from Sandisk.
Data by YCharts
With the stock trading at just 25 times forward earnings, it makes sense to buy it right away. After all, Sandisk's earnings reportedly jumped by a whopping 2,124% in the recently concluded fiscal 2026 to $66.51 per share. The chart above indicates that its bottom line is poised to grow further. If Sandisk's earnings indeed reach $232.88 per share in a couple of years and it trades at even 20 times earnings, a small discount to the S&P 500 index's forward earnings multiple of 21.7, its stock price could reach $4,657.
That's a potential jump of 2.6x from current levels, indicating that it isn't too late for investors to buy this high-flying growth stock.
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Meta software engineer Rohan Kulkarni spends part of his free time experimenting with AI tools. Rohan Kulkarni For Meta software engineer Rohan Kulkarni, keeping up with AI no longer ends when the workday does.
At work, he said AI has sped up brainstorming and prototyping, with projects that once took about a month sometimes taking just two or three weeks. But keeping up with AI isn't confined to the office. He typically spends four to six hours a week learning about new developments in tech and AI, including experimenting with ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity. He pays about $50 a month for the three subscriptions.
Kulkarni, who's in his late 20s and lives in California, is among the many tech workers spending hours of personal time with AI long after the workday ends. Some are using it to build side projects and learn skills they don't have time to develop during the workday. Their motivations vary, ranging from fears about AI reshaping their careers and concerns about falling behind colleagues to genuine curiosity about the technology.
As AI has helped Kulkarni complete tasks faster, it's also come with a new challenge: using AI without letting it do the thinking for him.
A habit of continuous learningKulkarni grew up in India and said he became fascinated with technology after his parents bought him a Windows 98 computer when he was about 5 years old.
He moved to the US in 2021 to earn a master's degree at Stony Brook University, before joining Meta the following year as a software engineer. Kulkarni credited a referral and intensive interview preparation with helping him land the role. Since then, he's advanced from a new graduate software engineer to a senior software engineer.
Kulkarni said he'd been teaching himself new technologies through side projects long before generative AI became mainstream. The rise of AI has simply shifted what he was learning.
"My main motivation is that new technologies create new opportunities," he said. "I want to be well prepared to take advantage of them when they arise."
That preparation happens during his personal time, but Kulkarni said he's been able to avoid cutting back on the things that matter most to him, like time with family.
"I have reduced time spent on scrolling, consuming content without purpose," he said, adding that he's cut back the most on YouTube Shorts and Netflix movies.
Learning to think with AIKulkarni said one of AI's biggest benefits isn't simply helping him work faster — it's changing how he approaches problems.
Before the availability of generative AI tools, Kulkarni often turned to mentors early in the development process to bounce around ideas, identify blind spots, and think through different approaches. Today, he said AI has become a "thinking partner," allowing him to work through many of those questions on his own.
"Mentors are still important," he said, "but you can do a lot of thinking with an AI as your thinking partner before reaching out to other people."
But learning how to use AI effectively has been a process. Kulkarni said he initially "delegated thinking" to AI, giving it a problem and asking it to figure everything out for him. He's since realized a more effective approach is to develop his own ideas first and then use AI to "pressure test" them, challenging his assumptions before deciding how to move forward.
"Don't think of AI as a fix-all," he said. "It's more of a tool which is empowering you."
Kulkarni said he's grown more accustomed to this different way of thinking, but understands why the shift can contribute to "AI fatigue" among some tech workers. Before the rise of generative AI, he said, workers were often responsible for carrying out every part of a task themselves. Today, they increasingly spend time working with AI tools that can help brainstorm and evaluate ideas — requiring a different way of thinking.
"You almost think of yourself as an architect at this point," he said, "which requires a different muscle."
Career advice for the AI eraKulkarni said layoffs across the tech industry have reminded him to focus on what he can control. Rather than worrying about business decisions, he said he tries to do his job well while supporting colleagues who have been affected.
"All I can do is do my job well, be grateful that I have a job, and then be compassionate for the people around me," he said.
Kulkarni has two other pieces of advice for tech workers. First, he said people should use AI to build on the skills they already have.
When it comes to navigating a career, Kulkarni said people should remember that, despite the AI boom, "everything is human." Whether they're building products with AI or working on side projects, he said the goal is ultimately to solve problems for other people — and keeping that perspective can help guide better decisions.
That mindset starts before work even begins. Rather than jumping straight into building something, Kulkarni said he first asks what value a project will provide to the customer.
He said the same human-focused mindset extends to networking. Rather than viewing conversations purely as opportunities to advance their careers, he believes stronger connections are formed when people take the time to get to know one another.
"Be genuinely curious to know the person and not just be there for the job," he said.
Do you have a story to share about learning AI or working in tech? Reach out to the reporter via email at [email protected], or via Signal at jzinkula.29.
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Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META | META Price Prediction) is spending like an infrastructure company and being valued like a growth company. With full-year 2026 capex guidance raised to $125 to $145 billion to build out AI data centers, the question is whether shareholders get paid back for that bet.
Our proprietary model says yes. The 24/7 Wall St. price target for Meta is $903.93, implying 32.67% upside from $681.31. Our recommendation is buy with high confidence.
24/7 Wall St. Price Target Summary Metric Value Current Price $681.31 24/7 Wall St. Price Target $903.93 Upside 32.67% Recommendation BUY Confidence Level 90% A Choppy Six Months, Then a Sharp Bid Back Meta has been a rollercoaster. Shares are up 12.96% in the past week and 14.8% over the past month, but only 3.39% year to date and down 3.78% over the past year. The stock sits 4% below its 52-week high of $793.65 after bouncing off a 52-week low of $519.78.
Q1 2026 was a blowout: EPS of $10.44 beat expectations of $6.66 on revenue of $56.31 billion, up 33.08% YoY. Ad impressions rose 19% and average price per ad rose 12%. The stock initially sold off to $608.75 a day after the earnings report as investors digested the raised capex line.
Why Bulls See a Breakout Ahead The bull case rests on Meta’s ability to convert AI compute into ad monetization. Family daily active people reached 3.56 billion, and Susan Li noted a 10% lift in Reels time spent on Instagram after Q1 ranking upgrades. Business AI conversations are running at more than 10 million weekly, up from 1 million at the start of the year.
Mark Zuckerberg said Meta is “on track to deliver personal superintelligence to billions of people.” Our bull scenario points to $1,033.70, a 51.72% return if Muse Spark and business agents scale on schedule.
What Could Go Wrong The bear case starts with capex intensity. Q1 capex hit $19 billion, up 46.8%, and Reality Labs still bled $4.03 billion. Insider activity is not encouraging: COO Javier Olivan has been selling weekly, with CFO Susan Li disposing of 9,195 shares on May 18, 2026 around $604 to $611.
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Bulls counter that these dispositions are largely scheduled RSU vestings rather than discretionary sales, and that the $8.03 billion tax benefit boosting Q1 EPS is a real cash item tied to CAMT R&D guidance. Our bear scenario lands at $773.09, a 13.47% return. Watch items include EU DMA pressure and 2026 youth-litigation trials.
How Meta Compares to Alphabet and Pinterest Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) is the cleanest comp because both are AI hyperscalers funding data-center builds from ad cash flow. Alphabet’s 2026 capex guide of $175 to $185 billion dwarfs Meta’s plan, and Google Cloud posted $20.03 billion in Q1 revenue, up 63% YoY. Alphabet trades near a similar forward multiple with a diversified cloud engine Meta lacks, making Meta’s forward P/E of 21x look reasonable rather than rich.
Pinterest (NYSE:PINS) offers a smaller-scale ad-platform contrast. Pinterest grew Q1 2026 revenue 17.8% to $1.01 billion with 631 million MAUs. Meta’s 33% ad revenue growth at vastly larger scale, plus 41.44% operating margins, makes our $903.93 target look conservative against the peer set.
Meta Price Prediction 2026-2030 The 24/7 Wall St. price target of $903.93 with 90% confidence lines up with 57 buy ratings against zero sells. The tipping factor is monetization velocity: ad pricing plus AI-driven engagement gains are already compounding.
The setup looks constructive if Q2 2026 revenue lands at the top of the $58 to $61 billion guide. The thesis weakens if capex creeps past $145 billion without a matching lift in operating income.
Year 24/7 Wall St. Price Target 2026 $903.93 2027 $1,050 2028 $1,210 2029 $1,370 2030 $1,522.85 These projections assume Meta scales ad revenue faster than data-center depreciation and Reality Labs losses stabilize. Meaningful upside or downside could come from AI regulation shifts or a Muse family model breakthrough.
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Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META | META Price Prediction | META Price Prediction) delivered Q1 2026 EPS of $10.44 versus a $6.66 consensus, a 56.79% beat, on revenue of $56.31 billion (+33.08% YoY). The stock sits at $656.73, roughly flat year to date.
When does META cross $700, and what needs to happen for that level to hold?
Why Meta Shares Are Stuck Despite a Blowout Quarter The overhang is CapEx. Management raised full-year 2026 capital expenditure guidance to $125 to $145 billion, up from $115 to $135 billion, and Reality Labs posted another $4.03 billion operating loss. The market is pricing execution risk on top of solid earnings.
Shares are down 8.18% over the past year and 0.34% YTD, even after ripping 15.93% over the past month and 9.4% in the past week. Beta of 1.246 explains these swings. Add regulatory pressure in the EU and youth-related litigation with trials scheduled in 2026, and the stock punishes bad headlines before crediting fundamentals.
Wall Street Sees 26% Upside. Our Model Says 38% The consensus analyst target is $828.34 based on 8 Strong Buy, 49 Buy, 6 Hold, and 0 Sell ratings. Our base case price prediction is $908.19, implying 38.29% upside, with a bull case of $1,033.28 and a bear case of $776.07. Confidence is 90%.
With 90% bullish analyst consensus and Q1 quarterly earnings growth of 62.4% YoY, the $828 target looks stale relative to Meta’s earnings trajectory. The near-term $700 level is a low bar on the way higher.
The Path to $700 Per Share Reaching $700 from today’s price of $656.73 requires a gain of 6.6%. With forward EPS of $41.13, a price of $700 implies a forward P/E of 17x. Our base case of $908.19 already implies 19x, meaning $700 simply requires the market to stop discounting the CapEx line, with no multiple expansion needed.
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Two catalysts drive the move. Meta’s 247Factor adjustment of 1.111 is powered by strong earnings acceleration and 90% bullish analyst consensus. Zuckerberg said on the Q1 call, “We had a milestone quarter with strong momentum across our apps and the release of our first model from Meta Superintelligence Labs” and reiterated Meta is “on track to deliver personal superintelligence to billions of people.”
Ad impressions rose 19% YoY while price per ad rose 12%, the AI-driven monetization engine funding the buildout. Our model has $700 arriving by October 2026. The primary risk is a Q3 CapEx surprise that pushes 2027 free cash flow guidance lower.
Where Meta Trades Today vs Its Earnings Power At $656.73 against forward EPS of $41.13, META trades at a forward P/E of 16x. That is cheap for a business growing revenue 33% YoY with 41.44% operating margins. The stock sits 17% below its 52-week high of $793.65 and well off the low of $519.78. META has returned 466.85% over ten years. The valuation gap is the thesis: earnings compound faster than the multiple expands.
Is $700 Realistic? Reaching $700 requires a 6.6% gain, and this target is realistic on a base-case timeline landing in fall 2026.
Three things must go right: Q2 revenue lands inside the $58 to $61 billion guidance, ad pricing holds double-digit growth, and Reality Labs losses do not widen materially from Q1. A Q3 CapEx revision above $145 billion without matching revenue acceleration derails it.
Prediction markets currently price the $700 print at 21.5% in the week-of-July-13 window, which reads too low given the earnings power on the table. We’ve outlined the blueprint for how Meta Platforms could reach $700 in 2026.
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I am upgrading Meta Platforms to a buy, driven by its entry into the cloud business and alleviated concerns over excess compute monetization. META's cloud initiative is expected to stabilize cash flow, enhance profitability, and position META competitively against neo-clouds and hyperscalers. Despite heavy CAPEX, META maintains double-digit FCF margins, superior operational efficiency, and trades at a discount to peers on FCF multiples.
The artificial intelligence AI acronym at the 10th edition of the VivaTech technology startups and innovation fair in Paris, France, June 18, 2026. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
CompaniesJuly 16 (Reuters) - AI models from leading labs including Anthropic and OpenAI are much less likely to criticize governments known for restricting free speech, Meta's (META.O), opens new tab Oversight Board said on Thursday.
A study, the first on large language models by the body, showed AI services were echoing the rules of countries that restrict speech and that bias could creep into services used by an increasing number of users.
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The board, which is funded by Meta but operates independently, ran requests for politically critical content on 10 jurisdictions across 10 models, including those from Meta Platforms, Google (GOOGL.O), opens new tab and China's DeepSeek.
The jurisdictions were split into "permissive" and "restrictive" categories using rankings from Freedom House, the NGO that publishes the annual "Freedom in the World" report.
AI models refused 34% of requests for politically critical content about "restrictive" jurisdictions that have active laws penalizing such criticism, such as China and Saudi Arabia, compared with 14% for regions that either lack such laws or do not enforce them, the study found.
"We also saw evidence of models explaining that they were following explicit rules that, as far as we could tell, did not exist and were not evenly applied," the board said.
It also urged AI companies to conduct systematic human rights analyses and asked for greater transparency in their training and evaluation processes.
On Tuesday, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis called for a U.S.-led AI watchdog, opens new tab to screen advanced models globally before deployment.
Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Jonathan Ananda
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab
Meta announced on Thursday that it will now notify parents if their teen discusses suicide or self-harm with the company's Meta AI chatbot. Meta says it's also working on the ability to contact emergency services if someone's conversations suggest they may be at risk of self-harm.
Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ:META) shares are extending their recent run on Wednesday. Here’s what you need to know.
Meta Platforms shares are advancing steadily. What’s pushing META stock higher? From Cautionary Tale to Market Darling in a Few WeeksThe backdrop to Wednesday’s move is a stunning reversal in sentiment that has unfolded over the past several weeks.
Wall Street had long treated commitments like Meta’s $50 billion-plus Hyperion data center expansion in Louisiana as a reckless use of capital with an unclear payoff. Boloor argues that once the market worked through the uncertainty around how that infrastructure would be financed and monetized, the stock earned a higher valuation multiple almost by default.
What has accelerated the rerating is evidence that Meta is moving from announcing infrastructure to actually shipping products built on top of it. The launch of its Muse Spark 1.1 model and the accompanying developer API gave investors a tangible signal that external AI monetization is no longer theoretical.
The Chart Says "Rebound," the Structure Says "Prove it"Technically, Meta is acting stronger in the near term than the longer-term backdrop would suggest. The stock is about 13% above the 20-day SMA at $597.84 and roughly 5% above the 200-day SMA at $641.36, a setup that usually signals a short‑run bullish lean in the tape.
The market, however, remembers the bigger picture. The 20-day SMA remains below the 50-day SMA, and the 50-day SMA is below the 200-day SMA, a death cross that formed in December 2025. In short, the bounce is real, but the trend reset is not finished.
Momentum indicators are at least cooperating. MACD is above its signal line and the histogram is positive, pointing to easing downside pressure compared with the prior downswing. That kind of improvement can keep dip‑buyers engaged until price runs into a level that forces conviction.
Where Bulls and Bears Will Actually FightThe next upside test is whether Meta can push through nearby resistance without stalling, especially with the stock still below its 52-week high of $796.25. For traders, the map is straightforward: a prove‑it zone overhead and a line in the sand underneath.
Key Resistance: $691.50, a nearby pivot where rebounds often stall, sitting just above current levels and close enough to matter quickly Key Support: $595.00, a prior buyer‑defense area that aligns with the broader pullback zone near the 20‑day SMA at $597.84 If the stock cannot hold that neighborhood on a pullback, the rebound narrative becomes far less convincing.
META Shares Are Moving HigherMETA Price Action: Meta shares were up 2.27% at $676.07 at the time of publication on Wednesday, according to Benzinga Pro.
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Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META, XETRA:FB2A, SIX:FB) is facing a lawsuit from 26 employees who allege the company used artificial intelligence tools and automated workplace metrics to select workers for mass layoffs, with the plaintiffs claiming the process disproportionately affected employees who had taken protected medical, parental or family leave.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Oakland, California, claims Meta relied on AI-assisted performance rankings, activity tracking data and internal “AI token usage” dashboards to evaluate employees during a workforce reduction process. The plaintiffs allege these systems failed to account for periods when workers were unable to generate certain productivity metrics while on approved leave.
According to the complaint, Meta used a combination of performance scores, productivity data and internal AI adoption measurements to rank employees for termination. The plaintiffs claim workers on disability, maternity or other protected leave were effectively penalized because those periods reduced the data available to the company’s evaluation systems.
The case relates to Meta’s planned workforce reductions involving about 8,000 employees earlier this year. The plaintiffs allege the company used automated systems to identify employees for termination rather than relying solely on managers’ assessments of individual performance.
The lawsuit includes claims from workers who were on approved leave when they were notified of their layoffs. One plaintiff, a scientist, alleges she was informed of her termination shortly before giving birth, while another engineer claims his rating was lowered after taking time off for an injury. A manager also alleges he was dismissed while on medical leave.
The employees are asking the court to pause the planned terminations, which are scheduled to begin on July 22, and are seeking an independent audit of Meta’s AI tools. They are also seeking potential damages, including lost compensation, equity and benefits.
Meta disputed the allegations, stating that the lawsuit’s claims “lack merit” and that workforce and organizational decisions are made by people, not AI.
The plaintiffs also raised concerns about Meta’s internal employee-monitoring program, which they claim collected workplace activity data, including device usage and productivity-related metrics. Meta previously paused the initiative following employee criticism and a petition signed by more than 1,600 workers citing privacy concerns.
Shares of Meta traded up 4% at $684 on Wednesday afternoon.
I keep hitting the buy button on Meta, and the September deadline is the reason I refuse to stop before then.
The pull for me is simple. Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META | META Price Prediction) owns the demand side of the AI economy. Every quarter, 3.56 billion people show up on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads, and Mark Zuckerberg gets to charge advertisers more to reach them. That is the flywheel I bought, and it is still spinning faster than the price implies.
The Receipts I Keep Coming Back To Q1 2026 is the receipt. EPS came in at $10.44 against a $6.66 consensus, a 56.79% beat, and the fifth quarter in a row Meta has cleared the bar. Revenue hit $56.31 billion, up 33.1% year over year. The engine underneath: ad impressions climbed 19% while average price per ad rose 12%. Volume and pricing together define a business with genuine pricing power.
The balance sheet backs the story. Return on equity sits at 30.24%, return on invested capital at 20.69%, and operating margin at 41.4%. Debt to equity is 0.39 and interest coverage is 71.5x. Meta paid $1.35 billion in Q1 dividends and returned $26.25 billion through buybacks across 2025. At a P/E of 24 and a forward P/E of 21, the multiple stays reasonable for a compounder of this quality.
Why September Changes the Math In September, Meta begins mass production of Iris, its proprietary fourth-generation AI chip co-developed with Broadcom and manufactured by TSMC. Iris is tuned for Meta’s recommendation and core app workloads and anchors a roadmap to 14 gigawatts of compute by 2027. Vertical integration on silicon is how a company earning 82.0% gross margins protects those margins while capex guidance runs to $125 to $145 billion this year.
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This capex-meets-monetization setup is exactly the pattern we walk through in our free research briefing, 7 Stocks Powering the AI Boom (That Aren’t Chipmakers), which looks at the platforms turning AI infrastructure spend into durable earnings.
Why Not Broadcom Instead Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO) is my other AI holding, and it is a fine business. Q2 FY2026 revenue rose 47.9% to $22.19 billion, with AI semiconductor revenue up 143% to $10.80 billion. I own it. I am holding, not adding. Broadcom carries $91.47 billion in total liabilities against $87.69 billion of shareholder equity and trades at a $1.85 trillion market cap while Meta sits at $1.45 trillion on a cleaner balance sheet. Broadcom sells picks and shovels; Meta owns the mine and pays Broadcom to help dig it. When Iris ramps, the vertically integrated buyer captures more of the value.
The Risk I Take Seriously The capex itself is the risk. Full-year capex was raised to $125 to $145 billion, Reality Labs lost $4.03 billion in Q1 alone and $19.2 billion across 2025, and free cash flow growth slowed to 11.74% year over year. If Iris slips or AI monetization stretches out, the compression gets worse before it gets better. What keeps me buying is the funding source: $32.23 billion in quarterly operating cash flow, $23.43 billion in cash on hand, and interest coverage of 71.5x. That is a cash printer buying its own future compute.
Analysts carry an $828.34 average target against a share price of $661.04. My reason for buying sits deeper: a business earning 30.24% ROE, growing revenue 33% year over year, and about to cut its own GPU bill is worth owning for the next decade regardless of what happens next month. The buy button stays warm.
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Meta Platforms (META - Free Report) has recently been on Zacks.com's list of the most searched stocks. Therefore, you might want to consider some of the key factors that could influence the stock's performance in the near future.
Shares of this social media company have returned +10.1% over the past month versus the Zacks S&P 500 composite's +1.6% change. The Zacks Internet - Software industry, to which Meta Platforms belongs, has gained 11.6% over this period. Now the key question is: Where could the stock be headed in the near term?
While media releases or rumors about a substantial change in a company's business prospects usually make its stock 'trending' and lead to an immediate price change, there are always some fundamental facts that eventually dominate the buy-and-hold decision-making.
Earnings Estimate RevisionsRather than focusing on anything else, we at Zacks prioritize evaluating the change in a company's earnings projection. This is because we believe the fair value for its stock is determined by the present value of its future stream of earnings.
We essentially look at how sell-side analysts covering the stock are revising their earnings estimates to reflect the impact of the latest business trends. And if earnings estimates go up for a company, the fair value for its stock goes up. A higher fair value than the current market price drives investors' interest in buying the stock, leading to its price moving higher. This is why empirical research shows a strong correlation between trends in earnings estimate revisions and near-term stock price movements.
Meta Platforms is expected to post earnings of $7.09 per share for the current quarter, representing a year-over-year change of -0.7%. Over the last 30 days, the Zacks Consensus Estimate has changed +0.3%.
For the current fiscal year, the consensus earnings estimate of $33.03 points to a change of +40.6% from the prior year. Over the last 30 days, this estimate has changed +0.3%.
For the next fiscal year, the consensus earnings estimate of $35.11 indicates a change of +6.3% from what Meta Platforms is expected to report a year ago. Over the past month, the estimate has changed +0.3%.
With an impressive externally audited track record, our proprietary stock rating tool -- the Zacks Rank -- is a more conclusive indicator of a stock's near-term price performance, as it effectively harnesses the power of earnings estimate revisions. The size of the recent change in the consensus estimate, along with three other factors related to earnings estimates, has resulted in a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) for Meta Platforms.
The chart below shows the evolution of the company's forward 12-month consensus EPS estimate:
12 Month EPS
Projected Revenue GrowthEven though a company's earnings growth is arguably the best indicator of its financial health, nothing much happens if it cannot raise its revenues. It's almost impossible for a company to grow its earnings without growing its revenue for long periods. Therefore, knowing a company's potential revenue growth is crucial.
In the case of Meta Platforms, the consensus sales estimate of $60.2 billion for the current quarter points to a year-over-year change of +26.7%. The $253.27 billion and $303.91 billion estimates for the current and next fiscal years indicate changes of +26% and +20%, respectively.
Last Reported Results and Surprise HistoryMeta Platforms reported revenues of $56.31 billion in the last reported quarter, representing a year-over-year change of +33.1%. EPS of $7.31 for the same period compares with $6.43 a year ago.
Compared to the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $55.49 billion, the reported revenues represent a surprise of +1.47%. The EPS surprise was +8.94%.
The company beat consensus EPS estimates in each of the trailing four quarters. The company topped consensus revenue estimates each time over this period.
ValuationNo investment decision can be efficient without considering a stock's valuation. Whether a stock's current price rightly reflects the intrinsic value of the underlying business and the company's growth prospects is an essential determinant of its future price performance.
Comparing the current value of a company's valuation multiples, such as its price-to-earnings (P/E), price-to-sales (P/S), and price-to-cash flow (P/CF), to its own historical values helps ascertain whether its stock is fairly valued, overvalued, or undervalued, whereas comparing the company relative to its peers on these parameters gives a good sense of how reasonable its stock price is.
The Zacks Value Style Score (part of the Zacks Style Scores system), which pays close attention to both traditional and unconventional valuation metrics to grade stocks from A to F (an A is better than a B; a B is better than a C; and so on), is pretty helpful in identifying whether a stock is overvalued, rightly valued, or temporarily undervalued.
Meta Platforms is graded C on this front, indicating that it is trading at par with its peers. Click here to see the values of some of the valuation metrics that have driven this grade.
Bottom LineThe facts discussed here and much other information on Zacks.com might help determine whether or not it's worthwhile paying attention to the market buzz about Meta Platforms. However, its Zacks Rank #3 does suggest that it may perform in line with the broader market in the near term.
UFC CEO Dana White has spent a year and a half watching Mark Zuckerberg operate from inside the boardroom, and his read on the man running Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META | META Price Prediction) is worth noting. On the Rodeo Time Podcast with host Dale Brisby late last year, White said, “I just got back from the Meta board meeting. Zuckerberg, who is a brilliant gangster, this guy is a gangster. These people who try to talk about him and everything else… I’m so blown away and impressed by this guy. He’s an animal.”
White followed with the punchline every Meta shareholder should be paying attention to: “He’s putting all the chips in on AI. We just hired like 10 kids that are aged 22 to 28. The average salary is like 65 million dollars that these kids are making that are coming and working on AI.”
A Killer’s Endorsement In a June 2026 TIME Magazine interview, White expanded on the theme. “I like killers. I like Michael Jordan, I like Tyson. You know, I like Carl Icahn and these type of guys. And Mark Zuckerberg might be the biggest killer I’ve ever met in my life,” he said, adding that Zuckerberg “is deeply involved in the details of his company and is constantly looking to take things to the next level.”
Zuckerberg’s side of the story landed on The Joe Rogan Experience in January 2025, when he explained his push to add White to the board. He wanted “the best entrepreneurs,” called what White built with the UFC “one of the most legendary business stories,” and said White “has a strong backbone.” White’s own statement on the appointment was blunt: “I’ve never been interested in joining a board of directors until I got the offer to join Meta’s board. I am a huge believer that social media and AI are the future.”
The All-In AI Bet White’s enthusiasm is a conviction call on Zuckerberg, and the numbers behind it are substantial. Meta has guided 2026 capital expenditures of $125 billion to $145 billion, a step change from roughly $70 billion in 2025 and about $37 billion in 2024. The company launched Meta Superintelligence Labs and released its first model in Q1 2026, with Zuckerberg telling investors, “We’re on track to deliver personal superintelligence to billions of people.”
Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and Meta didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today.
The business is funding the ambition. 2025 revenue reached about $201 billion, up from roughly $164.5 billion in 2024. Q1 2026 revenue climbed 33.1% year over year to $56.31 billion, with EPS of $10.44 versus a $6.66 consensus, though $3.13 of that came from an $8.03 billion tax benefit tied to Treasury guidance. The Q1 2026 8-K lays out the mechanics. Family of Apps reached 3.56 billion daily active people, and ad impressions rose 19% year over year with pricing up 12%.
The UFC Playbook Goes Inside Meta White’s influence is showing operationally. In April 2025, UFC named Meta its “Official Fan Technology Partner” in a multi-year deal that includes 180-degree VR streaming of events via Horizon Worlds and Xtadium on Meta Quest, Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses capturing first-person walkout and weigh-in footage, and Meta AI powering a revamped UFC fighter rankings system that replaces the old media voting panels.
The Stock Reality Check META trades around $672.70 today. Since White joined the board in early January 2025, the stock is up roughly 5.4%. Over the trailing year it is down about 8%, and it is roughly flat year to date in 2026. Wall Street remains constructive, with 49 Buy ratings, 8 Strong Buys, and an average price target of $828.34 against a forward P/E near 21.
White’s “brilliant gangster” framing is a bet on the operator, with performance still to be proven. Meta is spending like an AI hyperscaler while its core ad engine funds the whole thing, and Reality Labs still bleeds about $4 billion a quarter. The conviction case rests on Zuckerberg turning that capex into durable earnings power over the next several years. For readers weighing the story, that is the trade-off to study before drawing any conclusions. Nothing here is investment advice.
Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and Meta didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today.
Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META, XETRA:FB2A, SIX:FB) is facing a lawsuit from 26 employees who allege the company used artificial intelligence tools and automated workplace metrics to select workers for mass layoffs, with the plaintiffs claiming the process disproportionately affected employees who had taken protected medical, parental or family leave.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Oakland, California, claims Meta relied on AI-assisted performance rankings, activity tracking data and internal “AI token usage” dashboards to evaluate employees during a workforce reduction process. The plaintiffs allege these systems failed to account for periods when workers were unable to generate certain productivity metrics while on approved leave.
According to the complaint, Meta used a combination of performance scores, productivity data and internal AI adoption measurements to rank employees for termination. The plaintiffs claim workers on disability, maternity or other protected leave were effectively penalized because those periods reduced the data available to the company’s evaluation systems.
The case relates to Meta’s planned workforce reductions involving about 8,000 employees earlier this year. The plaintiffs allege the company used automated systems to identify employees for termination rather than relying solely on managers’ assessments of individual performance.
The lawsuit includes claims from workers who were on approved leave when they were notified of their layoffs. One plaintiff, a scientist, alleges she was informed of her termination shortly before giving birth, while another engineer claims his rating was lowered after taking time off for an injury. A manager also alleges he was dismissed while on medical leave.
The employees are asking the court to pause the planned terminations, which are scheduled to begin on July 22, and are seeking an independent audit of Meta’s AI tools. They are also seeking potential damages, including lost compensation, equity and benefits.
Meta disputed the allegations, stating that the lawsuit’s claims “lack merit” and that workforce and organizational decisions are made by people, not AI.
The plaintiffs also raised concerns about Meta’s internal employee-monitoring program, which they claim collected workplace activity data, including device usage and productivity-related metrics. Meta previously paused the initiative following employee criticism and a petition signed by more than 1,600 workers citing privacy concerns.
Shares of Meta traded up 4% at $684 on Wednesday afternoon.
Meta Platforms (META) will release its Q2 in about 2 weeks. Ahead of the release, shares are trading around the middle of the 52-week pack. At about a 20x forward earnings multiple, shares command a slight discount to its own historical averages. With CAPEX set to surge, there's the possibility META will eventually see negative free cash flow. This could justify the current discount in trading multiples.
CoreWeave stock is showing downward bias. What should traders watch with CRWV? Meta AI Plans Spark CoreWeave FearsChip Supply ConcernsAdding to the pressure, Reuters reported that Chinese startup DeepSeek is developing its own AI inference chip — a development that, if successful, could reduce demand for the type of compute infrastructure that neoclouds like CoreWeave are racing to build.
CoreWeave Shares Edge LowerCRWV Price Action: At the time of publication, CoreWeave shares are trading 0.05% lower at $79.90, according to data from Benzinga Pro.
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This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Bloomberg/Getty Images Meta used AI-powered workplace systems to penalize employees for taking medical and parental leave and then selected them for layoffs, according to allegations in a new lawsuit.
The complaint, filed by 26 current and former workers on Monday in federal court in Northern California, alleges that Meta relied on AI-assisted tools and employee-monitoring data to score and rank workers before cutting about 8,000 jobs in May.
The plaintiffs allege that the process relied on metrics such as work output, software development activity, and AI tool usage that employees could not accrue while on protected leave. By failing to adjust those measurements for time away, the suit alleges, Meta effectively recorded medical leave, maternity leave, and disability-related reductions in output as underperformance.
"Meta did not assemble the termination list through the considered judgment of managers who knew the work," the complaint says.
Instead, the employees allege, the company relied on systems including its internal AI chatbot, Metamate; AI usage dashboards; employee-trained "second-brain" agents designed to reproduce parts of a worker's output; activity-monitoring data; and AI-assisted performance and calibration tools.
They allege that Meta ranked employees using internal AI-adoption categories such as "AI Native," "AI First," and "AI Enabled," and that employees' scores declined when they were away from work. The allegations have not been tested in court.
"These claims lack merit and are not based on facts," a Meta spokesperson told Business Insider. "Workforce management and organizational decisions were and are made by people, not AI."
The case comes as Meta has pushed employees to use AI more heavily and tracked adoption through internal dashboards and leaderboards. Other major companies, including Disney, JPMorgan, and Visa, have also begun measuring employee AI usage.
The lawsuit against Meta referenced internal AI programs the company introduced this year. Meta had installed software on many US employees' computers to capture keystrokes and mouse movements as training data for its AI models, prompting employee protests over privacy and the program's mandatory nature, Business Insider reported in April. The lawsuit alleges that data from this monitoring program also helped feed Meta's layoff-selection systems.
Meta paused the program in June after an internal leak made the data widely accessible across the company.
Meta also introduced a performance system called Checkpoint this year, placing greater emphasis on outcomes and giving the company's top-rated workers significantly larger bonuses. The lawsuit alleges that an AI-enabled element of Checkpoint made employee AI adoption a "core assessment metric."
The complaint says several employees were selected for layoffs while on approved leave or shortly after returning from it. One engineer alleged that his manager blamed a lower rating on the "broken time" caused by an injury that prevented him from working. Another employee says a manager warned that taking medically approved leave would lead senior leadership to "definitely" nominate him for layoffs.
The employees are asking a judge to pause their terminations while their claims proceed in arbitration and to order an independent audit of Meta's layoff selection process. They also want Meta to recalculate the selections without counting protected leave or disability accommodations against workers.
The plaintiffs, who have chosen to remain anonymous, worked at Meta across several states, including California, Washington, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Florida.
Reuters first reported on the lawsuit on Tuesday.
Have a tip? Contact Pranav Dixit via email at [email protected] or Signal at 1-408-905-9124. Use a personal email address and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.
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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
, /PRNewswire/ -- Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ: META) announced today that the company's second quarter 2026 financial results will be released after market close on Wednesday, July 29th, 2026.
Meta will host a conference call to discuss its results at 1:30 p.m. PT / 4:30 p.m. ET the same day. The live webcast of the call can be accessed at the Meta Investor Relations website at investor.atmeta.com, along with the company's earnings press release, financial tables, and slide presentation.
Following the call, a replay will be available at the same website. Transcripts of conference calls with publishing equity research analysts held on July 29th, 2026 will also be posted to the investor.atmeta.com website.
Disclosure Information
Meta uses the investor.atmeta.com and meta.com/news websites as well as Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook profile (facebook.com/zuck), Instagram account (instagram.com/zuck) and Threads profile (threads.net/zuck) as means of disclosing material non-public information and for complying with its disclosure obligations under Regulation FD.
About Meta
Meta is building the future of human connection, powered by artificial intelligence and immersive technologies. When Facebook launched in 2004, it changed the way people connect. Apps like Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp further empowered billions around the world. Now, Meta is moving beyond 2D screens toward experiences that foster deeper connections and unlock new possibilities.
Contacts
Investors:
Chad Heaton
[email protected] / investor.atmeta.com
Meta is facing a lawsuit from 26 employees accusing the tech giant of using AI-powered software that disproportionately selected workers with disabilities and those who took medical leave to be impacted in a round of layoffs earlier this year.
The company allegedly used an internal bot known as “Metamate;” “second-brain” agents that were trained by workers; AI-usage dashboards; and keystroke and computer activity data to root out unproductive workers, according to the suit filed Monday in Oakland, Calif., federal court.
But this tech failed to account for workers who were out on valid medical leave – and “in effect penalized the employees for exercising their legal rights to these leaves,” according to the suit.
Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta is being sued for allegedly using discriminatory AI systems in its layoffs this year. AP Photo/Alex Brandon A Meta spokesperson denied the claims in the suit, saying they lack merit.
“Workforce management and organizational decisions were and are made by people, not AI,” a Meta spokesperson told The Post.
Reuters earlier reported the case.
It’s seemingly the first lawsuit targeting a major company for allegedly using AI in carrying out layoffs.
In May, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta kicked off a bloodbath round of 8,000 job cuts – nearly 10% of its global workforce and among the largest layoff rounds in its history – as it ramped up its AI investment plans. Another 7,000 staffers were also reassigned to AI-focused roles.
The 26 plaintiffs – a group of anonymous Meta managers, engineers, scientists and researchers from California, New York and Washington, DC – are asking the court to block Meta from completing the layoffs while they arbitrate their workplace disputes individually.
The suit alleged Meta ranked employees on a termination list using data from keystrokes, screen content, emails and browser history – effectively tanking the ratings for employees who had been out on leave and logging fewer hours.
Meta’s layoff practices violated federal and state laws that ban discrimination or retaliation against workers with disabilities and those who take medical leave or are pregnant, according to the suit.
Meta denied the claims in the lawsuit. Askar – stock.adobe.com Plaintiffs also alleged Meta did not test its AI systems for bias, which would violate new legislation in California and New York City.
In the spring, Meta leadership said the layoffs were an attempt to boost the firm’s efficiency as it ramped up spending on artificial intelligence.
So far this year, nearly a third of all job cuts have hit the tech sector – and AI came in as the leading reason for announced layoffs in June for the fourth month in a row, Challenger, Gray & Christmas said in a report earlier this month.
Meta has said it plans to spend $125 billion to $145 billion this year alone on AI infrastructure, including power-hungry data centers – and the chips needed to power them.
A huge boost in demand has caused severe memory-chip shortages, sending costs skyrocketing. Tech giants like Apple and Xbox have hiked prices on their gadgets, blaming the higher component costs.
In the meantime, investors have grown concerned that huge spending on AI might not result in blowout earnings – creating an “AI bubble” akin to the “dot-com bubble” of the early 2000s.
A coalition of current and former Meta employees have sued the social media giant, alleging that the company used artificial intelligence in its latest round of layoffs in a way that was discriminatory.
In a lawsuit filed Monday, plaintiffs allege that Meta violated various protected-leave laws and discrimination acts related to pregnancies and disabilities, among others, and said they wish to pursue their claims individually in arbitration.
Attorneys representing the 26 unnamed workers said in a legal complaint filed in the United States Northern District Court of California that the plaintiffs were among the 10% of Meta's workforce cut in the company's May layoff round.
The plaintiffs allege that Meta's "constellation of internal artificial-intelligence systems" failed to take approved absences into account when determining which employees to cut.
"Those tools draw on inputs—performance ratings, calibration scores, productivity and output metrics, 'AI-native' ratings, and AI-token consumption—that, by design, cannot be accumulated by an employee who is on protected medical or family leave, or whose output is reduced by a disability," the lawyers wrote in the filing.
The lawsuit accuses Meta of using metrics such as token consumption, which has become a proxy for general AI usage, in a way that targeted certain employees.
Courthouse News Service previously reported the lawsuit.
Read more CNBC tech newsBurnout, frustration and heartbreak: Amazon layoffs take their toll in saturated job marketMeta's Louisiana data center investment to reach $50 billion, aided by generous tax incentivesEurope's Anduril rival Helsing raises $1.8 billion at $18 billion valuationElon Musk and Sam Altman spar on X after Apple files OpenAI lawsuitA Meta spokesperson told CNBC in an email that the "claims lack merit and are not based on facts."
"Workforce management and organizational decisions were and are made by people, not AI," the Meta spokesperson said in the statement.
The lawsuit underscores the rising anxiety about AI's impact on jobs and people with disabilities in the workforce.
The plaintiffs are asking the court to issue a "preliminary injunction maintaining the status quo of their employment" at Meta, "pending an independent audit of the algorithmically assisted selection process and resolution of the merits of their claims in arbitration."
The lawsuit comes nearly a month after a federal judge in California ruled against tech firm Workday in a separate employee-related lawsuit involving the use of AI for hiring decisions. In that case, the judge ruled that Workday must face claims about the company's use of AI-powered job screening services that allegedly violated state and federal laws pertaining to employee discrimination.
Workday denied the allegations and said in a statement at the time that the AI recruiting software doesn't conduct hiring decisions "in California or anywhere else."
"Our technology looks only at job qualifications, not protected traits like race, age, or disability," Workday said in the statement. "We rigorously test our products as part of our Responsible AI program to confirm our tools do not harm protected groups."
WATCH: Meta rebound should continue through July, says 3Fourteen's Warren Pies
Item 1 of 2 A woman walks by the Meta Lab in Los Angeles, California, U.S., May 20, 2026. REUTERS/Daniel Cole
[1/2]A woman walks by the Meta Lab in Los Angeles, California, U.S., May 20, 2026. REUTERS/Daniel Cole Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
SummaryCompaniesThe 26 plaintiffs seek a court order blocking layoffs set to start on July 22Meta said the claims lack merit and people made workforce decisions, not AILawsuit says Meta used productivity scores and AI token usage in layoff selectionsJuly 14 (Reuters) - Twenty-six employees of Meta Platforms (META.O), opens new tab have filed a novel lawsuit accusing the tech giant of using AI-powered software that disproportionately targeted people with disabilities or who took medical leave in selecting workers for mass layoffs.
The lawsuit, filed in Oakland, California, federal court late Monday, says that the company relied on factors such as productivity and AI token usage when it slashed thousands of jobs earlier this year, disadvantaging people who missed work because of medical conditions or to care for family members.
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The plaintiffs, who were notified in May that their jobs would be eliminated starting on July 22, are seeking a preliminary ruling from the court blocking Meta from completing the layoffs while they pursue their claims in private arbitration. The workers say Meta's agreements require employees to arbitrate workplace disputes individually, but do not apply to requests for temporary relief.
A Meta spokesperson on Tuesday said the claims lack merit.
"Workforce management and organizational decisions were and are made by people, not AI," the spokesperson said.
The lawsuit appears to be the first against a major U.S. company to challenge the alleged use of AI in conducting layoffs.
Meta laid off 10% of its global workforce in May, or nearly 8,000 people, and was planning more job cuts later this year, Reuters had reported. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has since said that he does not expect any more company-wide layoffs this year.
The changes are part of a far-reaching overhaul as the company increases its AI investments and centers AI agents in both its product offerings and its approach to work internally.
The 26 plaintiffs, who filed the lawsuit anonymously, are accusing Meta of violating federal and state laws that ban discrimination or retaliation against workers who have disabilities, take medical leave or are pregnant. They also claim that Meta failed to test its AI systems for bias in violation of recently adopted California and New York City laws.
The plaintiffs come from six states, including California and New York, and the District of Columbia.
According to the complaint, Meta used a number of internal AI-assisted systems to score and rank employees on a termination list. Those included "Metamate," a large language model assistant; an employee-trained "second brain" that tracked workers' communications and documents; and a productivity score drawn from scanning keystrokes, screen content, emails and browser history, according to the lawsuit.
Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Alexia Garamfalvi and Mark Porter
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab
Dan Wiessner (@danwiessner) reports on labor and employment and immigration law, including litigation and policy making. He can be reached at [email protected].
Neocloud companies CoreWeave (CRWV 3.89%) and Nebius (NBIS 6.17%) each have major deals with Meta Platforms (META +0.11%). While the social media giant is still building out its own data center footprint, it has also secured leases with CoreWeave and Nebius to gain access to additional computing power in the meantime. It's doing this to give itself the best shot at developing an artificial intelligence model that can rival those produced by the other AI hyperscalers.
However, recent news suggests that Meta's approach could be changing, and that possibility ignited a sell-off in Nebius and CoreWeave's stocks. CoreWeave is now down by 35% from its 2026 high, and Nebius is down by nearly 25%. So, what caused these stocks to crater? Word that Meta plans to launch its own cloud computing service.
Image source: Getty Images.
The worrisome reason Meta is launching a cloud platform Of the big four AI hyperscalers, Meta Platforms is the only one without a cloud computing platform. The basics of the cloud business are straightforward: Owners build out excess computing capacity and then rent that computing power to various clients. That business model has become even more vital during the AI boom. Few companies have the resources necessary to build AI data centers, as they're incredibly expensive.
The market has been fairly patient with the big three cloud computing providers' build-out plans because investors can see how those investments will directly translate into revenue growth. However, Meta has been using all of its computing capacity on internal efforts that don't produce returns on investment that are as easily measurable. Because of this, the market has always been more skeptical about Meta's enormous capex budgets.
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Creating a cloud computing business has never been a top priority for CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and he stated that the company would consider forming one only if it had excess computing capacity that it wasn't using for internal needs. As of early June, he claimed Meta did not have that spare capacity. However, recent reports allege that Meta is taking steps to form a cloud computing business, which could transform how the market views the stock.
But it also raises questions about the future of Nebius and CoreWeave.
Does Meta need the neoclouds' computing capacity anymore? Earlier this year, Nebius announced a five-year partnership under which it will provide $12 billion in dedicated capacity to Meta Platforms. The deal also included the possibility of it leasing another $15 billion in computing capacity from clusters that Nebius has not yet brought online. That's a huge deal for a company of Nebius' size, and it was a big reason why the stock has rallied this year. CoreWeave signed a similar $14 billion deal with Meta last year.
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The reason Meta inked those deals was to gain access to as much computing capacity as possible, as quickly as possible. If it concludes that it actually has too much computing capacity, but decides that it doesn't want to build a cloud computing business, then Meta could cut ties with these two neoclouds and potentially regain the resources it needs for its AI demands. However, I doubt that will happen.
The reality is that AI computing capacity is supply-constrained right now, and having the right to more of it is a bigger advantage. Plus, if Meta's personal superintelligence AI model eventually becomes a hit and is tied into its AI glasses, the company could need a lot of the AI computing power it has already contracted for. Just because Meta has more computing capacity than it needs right now doesn't mean it won't need all of it in the future.
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Because of that, I think CoreWeave and Nebius are still OK investments; they're just a little less safe than they were a few months ago. These two are booming cloud businesses, and even if Meta backs out of its deals with them, they will likely be able to find customers who do want that computing capacity.
In a recent interview, Instagram head Adam Mosseri said he can see a time in the future, perhaps only a year or two, when putting limits on Meta employees’ AI token spend will become necessary.
“I think that you can imagine, at least in a year or two … that the burn rate of a strong engineer might be the same as their salary, or their cost of employment. And in that world, you’re going to probably need to put in some caps,” the Meta executive said, while speaking on Lenny’s Podcast.
AI token spend, a reference to the cost of processing AI prompts and responses, has been a much-buzzed-about subject in recent days. Meta shut down an internal AI token spend leaderboard after AI costs put the company on track for billions of dollars in 2026.
Meta is not alone in rethinking its approach to AI experimentation. Uber also had an AI reckoning after it blew through its 2026 AI coding budget by April. Soaring token costs saw Microsoft cancel Claude Code licenses, consolidating its engineers around its own Copilot CLI tool instead.
Mosseri’s belief, he explained, is that AI token costs will have to be managed just like any other resource, offering an analogy to things like payroll or operating expenditure (OpEx), which is the day-to-day costs of running a business.
“I think of it like…any other resource,” Mosseri said. “I have to decide how to deploy capacity to my different teams because I have a limited number of GPUs and CPUs and storage and RAM etc. I have to decide how to deploy OpEx for labeling budgets across my teams. I have to decide how to deploy payroll for headcount across my teams.”
Token budgets will be the same, he added, noting that the cap per engineer would have to be proportional to the company’s trust in their ability to use the budget in an “ROI-positive” way.
Meta doesn’t currently have token caps for any employee, Mosseri said, but he believes that their use could be healthy in the future. Further down the road, he expects token costs to come down as the AI model makers enter a pricing war to attract people to use their tools over their competitors.
For now, the company has managed to rein in its token costs a bit by shutting down the “silly things” that it was doing, Mosseri noted — like that token spend leaderboard.
“It’s not that hard to build a token incinerator, and that doesn’t create a lot of value,” he said.
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My answer to the title: not yet, and maybe never the way bulls hope. Selling compute is unlikely to match the roughly 52% operating margin of Meta's Family of Apps. Two things flipped it in July: a Bloomberg report on a Meta cloud business, and a paid model API. Suddenly, the capex looked rentable, not dead money. What I need on the 29th of July is proof that Meta Compute actually exists. Named customers would be very welcome.
Meta Platforms (META - Free Report) closed at $656.73 in the latest trading session, marking a -1.86% move from the prior day. The stock fell short of the S&P 500, which registered a loss of 0.79% for the day. Elsewhere, the Dow saw a downswing of 0.26%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq depreciated by 1.55%.
The social media company's stock has climbed by 18.03% in the past month, exceeding the Computer and Technology sector's gain of 3.44% and the S&P 500's gain of 4.28%.
The investment community will be paying close attention to the earnings performance of Meta Platforms in its upcoming release. It is anticipated that the company will report an EPS of $7.09, marking a 0.7% fall compared to the same quarter of the previous year. At the same time, our most recent consensus estimate is projecting a revenue of $60.2 billion, reflecting a 26.69% rise from the equivalent quarter last year.
For the annual period, the Zacks Consensus Estimates anticipate earnings of $33.05 per share and a revenue of $253.41 billion, signifying shifts of +40.7% and +26.09%, respectively, from the last year.
Any recent changes to analyst estimates for Meta Platforms should also be noted by investors. These revisions typically reflect the latest short-term business trends, which can change frequently. Hence, positive alterations in estimates signify analyst optimism regarding the business and profitability.
Our research reveals that these estimate alterations are directly linked with the stock price performance in the near future. To capitalize on this, we've crafted the Zacks Rank, a unique model that incorporates these estimate changes and offers a practical rating system.
The Zacks Rank system, ranging from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), possesses a remarkable history of outdoing, externally audited, with #1 stocks returning an average annual gain of +25% since 1988. Over the past month, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 0.36% higher. Meta Platforms currently has a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).
From a valuation perspective, Meta Platforms is currently exchanging hands at a Forward P/E ratio of 20.25. This expresses a premium compared to the average Forward P/E of 19.66 of its industry.
Investors should also note that META has a PEG ratio of 1.05 right now. The PEG ratio is akin to the commonly utilized P/E ratio, but this measure also incorporates the company's anticipated earnings growth rate. Internet - Software stocks are, on average, holding a PEG ratio of 1.07 based on yesterday's closing prices.
The Internet - Software industry is part of the Computer and Technology sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 104, which puts it in the top 43% of all 250+ industries.
The Zacks Industry Rank assesses the strength of our separate industry groups by calculating the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks contained within the groups. Our research shows that the top 50% rated industries outperform the bottom half by a factor of 2 to 1.
Be sure to use Zacks.com to monitor all these stock-influencing metrics, and more, throughout the forthcoming trading sessions.
A fisheye view of thousands of servers at Facebook’s data center in Luleå, Sweden, in 2013. The facility illustrates the scale of Meta’s infrastructure but is separate from its $50 billion Louisiana expansion.
AFP via Getty Images
On July 13, Meta said it would put more than $50 billion into a single Louisiana data center, more than doubling its planned capacity to 5 gigawatts. Twelve days earlier, Bloomberg reported that the same company was developing plans to sell its "excess" AI computing capacity to outsiders. Read those two headlines together and something doesn’t add up. One of the largest buyers of compute on earth is telling the market it needs vastly more, and that it expects to have enough to spare, within 12 days.
That contradiction is not really about Meta. It’s the question the whole AI buildout has been dodging: how much of the compute already bought is actually being used?
The most flattering answer is also the most revealingStart with the most charitable reading, because it’s probably the right one. Meta is building for the future and renting out the slack until it needs it. That isn’t a stretch. It follows a basic cloud logic: build at scale, then sell the capacity you aren’t using yet. AWS turned that model into Amazon’s most profitable business. If that’s the play, selling "excess" compute is the smartest move on the board.
But it only works when the provider can measure its own utilization precisely, so it knows exactly how much slack it can safely lease out. The real question about Meta is not whether building ahead is wise. It’s whether Meta can prove which story it’s in. Without a utilization number, no outsider can separate "deliberately built ahead" from "bought more than the workloads will absorb." That gap is not academic. Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet and Meta plan to spend roughly $725 billion in 2026 capital spending, primarily for AI data-center equipment, up 77% from last year. Even a small utilization miss across a buildout that large can strand billions in equipment sitting warm, waiting for work.
The polite word for selling that gear is optionality. The blunt one is overbuilding.
Why the market cheered the confusionThe stock reaction is the tell. Meta shares rose about 8.8% on the report, while a chunk of the chip complex sold off the same day. Micron dropped 10.6%. AMD fell nearly 7%. Even Nvidia slipped.
Meta's plan was probably a catalyst rather than the whole cause; semiconductors had run up hard, and doubts about whether AI spending could hold this pace were already in the air. But the split is hard to unsee. Investors paid up for the company that found a fresh way to earn money off its infrastructure, and stepped back from the companies whose growth assumes hyperscalers keep buying hardware forever. For most of this boom, the market rewarded whoever built the most. That afternoon offered an early sign that investors may be starting to grade something harder: what the buildout actually returns.
The number every board is about to get asked forHaving sat through enough capital-allocation reviews to recognize the pattern, I hear “we can always sell the excess” differently. It doesn’t sound like confidence. It sounds like management doesn’t want to say how much of the capacity it actually expects to use.
Every company in this race can quote its inputs: GPUs bought, gigawatts planned, dollars committed. What public disclosures rarely include is the one figure that would settle it: how much of that capacity is doing real work, rather than sitting warm and depreciating. Meta may have a strong answer, and it’s plainly still expanding rather than retreating, which is exactly why the resale plan is worth watching. It hints that owning the most compute is no longer the whole game. The gear has to be used, priced, and measured against a result.
Resale is a thin safety net anyway. AI hardware can lose value quickly, each new chip generation raises the bar, and specialized clouds already compete hard on price, so capacity that looks scarce today can cheapen the moment a few sellers crowd in. A 5-gigawatt buildout still depends on transformers, transmission lines and other grid hardware, and those physical constraints don’t care how the compute eventually gets billed.
What executives should do about itThe buildout wasn’t necessarily a mistake. Demand may grow into it. But the metric the market rewards is shifting under everyone’s feet. Phase one measured ambition by how much you would spend. Phase two measures how well you use it. Before the next infrastructure check clears, boards and CFOs should ask three plain questions: what share of the AI compute we already own is in productive use, what business result it produces, and who owns moving that number. If nobody can answer, you don’t have an infrastructure strategy. You have a very expensive warehouse.
Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) shares traded lower on Monday; they are overbought and are near a resistance level.
These can be bearish dynamics, which is why Meta is the Stock of the Day,
Markets are driven by supply and demand. If there is more demand than supply, meaning there are more shares to be bought than there are for sale, buyers will be forced to outbid each other to draw sellers into the market.
This will put the shares into an uptrend.
At resistance levels, there is enough supply to fill all of the demand. Buyers can stop outbidding each other, and the rally ends.
Sometimes when a stock reaches a resistance level, a reversal follows.
This happens when some of the sellers who created the resistance become anxious and impatient. They know that the buyers will go to whoever is willing to sell at the lowest price.
As a result, they reduce their offering prices. Other anxious and impatient sellers do the same thing. This forces the shares into a downtrend.
You can see on the chart that there was resistance for Meta around $686 in April. When the shares sold off after many of the investors and traders who bought at the level regretted doing so.
A number of them made the decision to hold onto their losing positions. But they also decided to sell out at breakeven if they could eventually do so.
This means that if Meta returns to this level, these remorseful buyers will place sell orders. If there is a large enough number of them, it could create resistance at the level again.
The shares are also overbought. They are trading above their typical range. This could draw sellers into the market. They will be anticipating a reversion to the mean or a move lower, and their selling could put pressure on the shares.
The combination of being overbought while at resistance could mean the uptrend in Meta may soon pause or end. There may even be a reversal.
Photo: Shutterstock
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Jim Cramer says a single AI product decision at Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META | META Price Prediction) just moved the stock roughly $100 per share, and he is using it as Exhibit A for why big tech is nearly impossible to trim.
In his Sunday column, Cramer wrote that on the June 30 episode of Mad Money he argued a cloud business announcement from Meta would be “worth an easy 100 points, or $100 per share, for the stock,” back when shares closed at $563. Ten trading days later, they closed at $669.21.
That is a 14.81% move in a single week and a 17.31% move in a month on a company with a $1.7 trillion market cap. Cramer’s takeaway, published on CNBC: “By a simple stroke of a pen, Meta gives you 100 points, or almost 20%.”
The Catalyst Cramer Called The specific event was Meta signaling it would rent out excess AI compute. Zuckerberg told Bloomberg last week that “the offers that you get for using the compute are so high that it may make sense, in some cases, to rent out or consider those kind of deals instead of your own internal uses.” Meta jumped 5.97% on Friday, July 10, closing at $669.21.
The compute-monetization pivot lands on top of Meta Superintelligence Labs, the new AI research entity Zuckerberg introduced on the Q1 2026 call. He described it as a “milestone quarter” that included “the release of our first model from Meta Superintelligence Labs” and reiterated the goal of “personal superintelligence to billions of people.”
The Numbers Under the Rally Meta’s Q1 2026 report, filed with the SEC on April 29, showed revenue of $56.31 billion, up 33.08% year over year, and EPS of $10.44 against a $6.66 estimate. The advertising engine grew 33%, with ad impressions +19% and average price per ad +12%. Family daily active people reached 3.56 billion.
The catch: capex. Meta raised full-year 2026 capital expenditure guidance to $125–145 billion, up from a prior $115–135 billion range. Q1 capex alone hit $19 billion. Cramer’s argument is that the compute-rental pivot changes how investors should think about that spend, because dormant infrastructure suddenly becomes a revenue line rather than a capex sinkhole.
Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and Meta didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today.
Debt Versus AI Payback The bear case Cramer is answering is leverage. Total debt has climbed from $13.87 billion at year-end 2021 to $86.77 billion at the end of Q1 2026. Capital lease obligations tied to AI data centers doubled to $28.02 billion. Debt-to-equity has moved from 0.111 to 0.356.
The offset is cash generation. Retained earnings reached $144.65 billion. Operating cash flow in Q1 was $32.23 billion. Liquid assets total $51.84 billion, and the current ratio sits at 2.35x.
Investors sorting the AI winners from the also-rans may find useful context in our 7 Stocks Powering the AI Boom (That Aren’t Chipmakers) report, which frames why hyperscalers with in-house monetization paths get valued differently than pure infrastructure plays.
What to Watch Next At 24x trailing earnings and 19x forward, Meta is not cheap on a growth-adjusted basis, but the analyst consensus target of $828.34 implies room above current levels, backed by 49 Buy and 8 Strong Buy ratings against zero Sell calls. Q2 revenue guidance is $58–61 billion.
Prediction markets are notably split on tempo. Polymarket traders assign a 64.5% probability that shares finish today lower, yet give Meta an 80.5% chance of ending 2026 with a higher valuation than OpenAI. That is the exact tension Cramer’s column captures: near-term digestion is possible, but the AI optionality is the reason he says these names are so hard to leave.
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$125 billion to $145 billion. That is what Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META | META Price Prediction) now expects to spend on capital expenditures in 2026, raised from a prior range of $120 to $135 billion when the company reported first-quarter results on April 29, 2026.
Now, this is forward-looking guidance, not a reported figure. That said, this number stands against a 2025 full-year capex base of $72.215 billion. The framing writes itself: Meta is preparing to deploy roughly $50 billion more on AI infrastructure this year than last, and CFO Susan Li told analysts the raise reflects “higher component pricing this year and, to a lesser extent, additional data center costs to support future-year capacity.”
What It Means The scale is what stops you. In the first quarter alone, Meta spent $18.997 billion on capex, up 46.8% year over year. The company also disclosed that multiyear cloud deals and infrastructure purchase agreements drove a $107 billion step up in contractual commitments during the quarter. Zuckerberg framed the spend directly: “We are investing aggressively to meet our infrastructure needs and ensure we maximize our strategic flexibility over the coming years.”
What backs the spend is a business still compounding at scale. Q1 revenue came in at $56.311 billion, up 33.08% year over year, with operating income of $22.872 billion and a 41% operating margin. Ad impressions rose 19% and average price per ad rose 12%, both year over year, while family daily active people reached 3.56 billion. Free cash flow was $12.386 billion in the quarter, and operating cash flow reached $32.226 billion. Additionally, reported EPS of $10.44 exceeded expectations against a consensus of $6.6587, though investors should note the beat was inflated by an $8.03 billion one-time tax benefit tied to U.S. Treasury guidance on capitalized R&D, worth $3.13 per share.
Market Reaction Meta shares have not rewarded the Capex raise. From the Q1 filing date on April 29, 2026 through July 2, 2026, the stock is down 12.81%, moving from $668.53 to $582.90. Year to date, shares are off 11.54%. Over the past week, however, the stock has moved higher by 7.37%, and one TradingKey report attributed a 7.56% single-day gain on July 1 to plans to launch a cloud infrastructure business selling excess AI computing capacity.
Bull Case The bull case rests on three data points that connect the capex to cash. First, monetization is accelerating alongside the AI build. On Instagram, Q1 ranking improvements drove a 10% lift in Reels time spent, and Facebook video time rose more than 8% globally, the largest quarter-over-quarter gain in four years. Enhancements to the Lattice and GEM ad models delivered a more than 6% increase in conversion rate for landing page view ads.
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Second, the business AI layer is scaling from a small base. Susan Li said Meta now has “more than 10 million conversations each week being facilitated through business AIs, up from 1 million at the start of the year.”
Third, the company is diversifying compute suppliers to control cost, with Zuckerberg noting Meta is “rolling out more than one gigawatt of our own custom silicon that we are developing with Broadcom as well as a significant amount of AMD chips to complement the new NVIDIA systems.”
I think Meta’s valuation still frames the setup as reasonable for a business growing revenue in the low 30s. The company’s trailing P/E multiple sits at 22, forward P/E at 19, and the analyst consensus target is $828.13 against a current price of $582.90. Ratings tilt heavily positive with 8 strong buy, 49 buy, 6 hold, and zero sell ratings. Prediction markets favor Meta over OpenAI at 81% probability of a higher year-end valuation.
Bottom Line For long-term holders, Meta’s raised capex range is the clearest statement the social media and tech giant has made about where the next decade of returns will come from. The company’s Q2 guidance calls for revenue of $58 to $61 billion, and management expects full-year 2026 operating income above 2025 levels even after absorbing the higher spend.
The next test is the Q2 earnings report against that $58 to $61 billion range. If ad pricing, impression growth, and business AI adoption keep compounding, the $125 billion to $145 billion looks like scale investors will eventually pay up for. If any of those levers slip, the same number becomes the bear case in one earnings cycle.
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A rendering of the Richland Parish data center. Meta Meta is scaling up what was already slated to become its largest AI data center, a Louisiana campus that the tech giant says has fueled "life-changing returns" for local teachers and businesses.
The company behind Facebook and Instagram said in a blog post on Monday that the Richland Parish data center, known as Hyperion, will now grow to 5 gigawatts of compute capacity, bringing the project's cost to more than $50 billion.
The announcement offers a new data point for Wall Street investors watching Meta closely for updates on its AI spending plans. The company's capital expenditures have ballooned in the last two years, largely due to AI infrastructure costs.
As part of its announcement, Meta touted the project's local economic impact, saying that the increased tax revenues tied to the data center have recently led to year-end bonuses of up to $50,000 for Richland Parish teachers.
That's 400% higher than what teachers received last year in the rural Louisiana parish that's home to about 20,000 people, according to Meta.
Sheldon Jones, the parish's school district superintendent, said in a statement shared by Meta that the influx of money has been "life-altering for our teachers and their families" and was "transforming our schools."
"Last year, our teachers received a $10,000 bonus, this year that check was over $50,000," Jones said, adding, "Meta's investment has made Richland Parish a destination for education as well as industry."
Jones did not immediately respond to a request by Business Insider for further comment.
The Hyperion project, according to Meta, is among the largest investments in AI infrastructure worldwide.
Meta said in its Monday post that local Louisiana businesses have received more than $1.6 billion in contracts from the company since it broke ground on the 4 million-square-foot site in December 2024.
"With this expansion, we will be investing over $1 billion in local infrastructure improvements, including roads, water and wastewater systems," said Meta.
It added that the company "pays the full costs of the energy, water, and related infrastructure the data center uses so consumers aren't paying the cost."
The project's expansion marks a dramatic escalation from last year when Meta and investment firm Blue Owl Capital put the data center's price tag at about $27 billion with plans for more than 2 gigawatts of compute capacity.
Once operational, Meta says the data center will create more than 1,000 jobs.
While Meta has highlighted the project's economic benefits, the rapid buildout of AI data centers by Big Tech has become a flashpoint, with critics raising widespread concerns about energy demand, water consumption, and the strain on local infrastructure.
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Natalie Musumeci You're currently following this author! Want to unfollow? Unsubscribe via the link in your email.
Natalie is a senior reporter on Business Insider's Business News team.She was previously on BI's Legal Affairs team where she covered major cases out of state and federal court, as well as bankruptcy. Her coverage often focused on stories at the intersection of law, business, politics and technology. Natalie has covered Donald Trump’s criminal and civil cases, the wave of lawsuits against the second Trump administration, the indictment and criminal trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs, the shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, and the legal battles facing Elon Musk and his companies. Natalie came to Business Insider in June 2021 as a breaking news reporter, focusing on the most interesting angles around the trending news of the day. Natalie largely drove BI’s coverage around the fatal “Rust” shooting involving Alec Baldwin and the disappearance and murder of Gabby Petito.Prior to joining BI, Natalie worked for the New York Post, the New York Daily News, and The Brooklyn Paper. She has an extensive background covering crime and courts. During her more than 12-year journalism career, she did a stint covering the police beat out of the headquarters for the New York Police Department. Natalie, a Brooklyn native, graduated from Brooklyn College in 2012 with a journalism degree. Popular articles
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After being down and out for several months, shares of Magnificent Seven giant Meta Platforms NASDAQ: META are starting to get their groove back. The stock recently popped 8.8% on reports that Meta will enter the cloud computing business, selling excess capacity to third parties.
Meta shares then saw two large single-day up moves on July 9 and July 10, rising 4.7% and 6%. Part of the stock’s latest gain is due to what is likely Meta’s most significant artificial intelligence (AI) model release: Muse Spark 1.1.
Get Meta Platforms alerts:
Data indicates that Muse Spark 1.1 is Meta’s most intelligent model yet.
Additionally, the model may mark the beginning of an inflection point in Meta’s ability to generate revenue from AI products.
Muse Spark 1.1: Meta’s AI Model Intelligence Is on the RiseArtificial Analysis is a helpful source for gauging the relative capabilities of AI models. The company tests models on agentic, coding, general intelligence, and scientific reasoning to give them an “Intelligence Index” score. Currently, Muse Spark 1.1 has a score of 51, which is higher than any model developed by Alphabet NASDAQ: GOOGL. However, it still ranks below many of Anthropic's and OpenAI’s latest models, several of which have scores above 55.
Muse Spark 1.1’s score is also significantly higher than that of Meta’s initial Muse Spark model, with a score of 43. Going forward, it will be important to see whether Muse Spark 1.1 maintains this score and its relative standing among other models. Initially, Meta’s first Muse Spark model had a score of 52, but this has since fallen. This is likely because Artificial Analysis updates and reweights its evaluation framework over time.
Still, based on the latest testing, Muse Spark 1.1 represents a significant improvement over the original Muse Spark and ranks highly overall. This lends validation to Meta’s massive AI capital expenditures and its hiring of Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang, who has been critical to Muse Spark’s development. Not only is Meta making better models, but for the first time, it is making a real monetization push.
Meta Steps Into AI Model MonetizationNotably, Muse Spark 1.1 marks the first time Meta will charge for access to its models. Meta will charge users on a per-token basis, or based on the amount of information the model processes and outputs, in a "pay-as-you-go" format. Anthropic and OpenAI allow users to pay for models in this way as well, but also provide access through flat monthly or annual fees.
One of the reasons to think that Muse Spark 1.1 could gain real traction and generate notable revenue for the firm is its pricing. CEO Mark Zuckerberg says Muse Spark 1.1’s per-token pricing is around 25% of what Anthropic and OpenAI charge for similar models. Artificial Analysis adds weight to this. It places Muse Spark 1.1’s “cost per Intelligence Index Task” around three times lower than OpenAI’s GPT-5.4, which also has an Intelligence Index Score of 51.
If Muse Spark 1.1 offers a level of intelligence comparable to another model but at a much lower cost, users have an incentive to adopt it. This gives Meta a realistic opportunity to start generating significant revenue directly through its AI model. This may come through software developers using it for coding tasks, an area where its performance is particularly improved over the original Muse Spark.
Still, it is possible that Meta is highly subsidizing its model cost, with Alexandr Wang calling the pricing “very aggressive and attractive.” The word ‘aggressive’ seems to indicate a degree of deliberate undercutting. In turn, Meta’s pricing may not be high enough to support the model profitably.
Nonetheless, through low pricing, Meta has an opportunity to prove Muse Spark’s capabilities to users, an important first step in generating sales. Over time, Meta can evolve its pricing to increase margins.
Patience Remains Key as Meta Looks to Monetize Muse Spark 1.1There is real reason for investors to feel excited about the progress Meta has made with Muse Spark 1.1. It has a better model and is now looking to monetize it to boost returns on its AI spending. Still, the true test will be what Meta shows over time in its actual financials.
Investors should monitor the company’s future earnings calls for data on how much revenue Muse Spark is bringing in. It may take time for Meta to provide detailed information on this, and the company’s near-term earnings reports may not give much insight.
Meanwhile, recent gains indicate investor optimism, and sentiment around Meta has not been this high in quite some time.
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I keep buying Meta, and the reason is embarrassingly simple: it is the only trillion-dollar AI story I can find where the buyer of the compute and the seller of the ads are the same company. Every time I add, I am buying a business that owns its picks, its shovels, and the mine.
The $13 billion, 1-gigawatt data center expansion in Alberta is what pushed me from “position” to “conviction.” Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META | META Price Prediction) is partnering with local energy infrastructure to bypass grid constraints and control its own natural gas power, then running open-source Llama-family models on top of it. That is a vertical stack. Zuckerberg has already said Meta is “rolling out more than one gigawatt of our own custom silicon” alongside AMD and NVIDIA systems. The cloud giants I would otherwise own are renting land, waiting on substations, and marking up someone else’s GPUs.
The Numbers That Keep the Buy Button Warm Start with the earnings report. Q1 2026 delivered EPS of $10.44 versus a $6.66 consensus, a 56.79% beat and the fifth straight quarter of EPS beats, on revenue of $56.31 billion, up 33.1% year over year. Ad impressions rose 19% and average price per ad climbed 12%, so both sides of the ad equation are expanding at once.
Then the margins. Meta ran an operating margin of 41% while pushing $18.997 billion of capex in a single quarter. The full-year 2026 capex range is $125 to $145 billion, and the business still generated $32.226 billion of operating cash flow in the quarter. That is what a fortress income statement looks like.
Then the price you pay for it. Meta trades at a 22 trailing P/E and a 20 forward P/E, with a PEG of 0.889 and an analyst target of $828.17 against a $631.48 quote.
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Why Not AWS or Azure I own the cloud story indirectly through Meta, so I do not need to reach for Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) or Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN). Microsoft is down 23.05% over the trailing year and 20.17% year to date, and it announced 4,800 job cuts amid pressure to show AI ROI. Amazon has run up 11.01% over one year, but it is raising $25 billion in a bond sale to finance AI capex. Meta is funding its buildout out of its own ad engine while carrying interest coverage of 71.48x. When the compute layer commoditizes, the rentiers get squeezed and the owner-operator keeps the spread.
The Risk I Actually Respect Reality Labs bled $19.2 billion in 2025, and youth-related litigation trials scheduled in 2026 may result in material losses. Capex could also outrun revenue if AI monetization slips. What keeps my thesis intact: 3.56 billion daily active people and business AI conversations that grew from 1 million to more than 10 million per week in a single year. That is the distribution monopoly paying the infrastructure bill.
What Keeps the Buy Button Active Prediction markets currently give a 76.5% probability that Meta will outvalue OpenAI by year-end 2026. I am paying for the machine that produces it: owned power, owned silicon, owned models, owned audience. As long as that stack holds together at a 20 forward multiple, my finger stays on the buy button.
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Meta is pushing advertisers to use its AI tools — and results are proving chaotic: strangely twisted limbs, gibberish writing, or entirely changed products.
Meta's response to brands: That's on you, not us.
The tech giant has inserted a slew of AI features into its ad products in recent months. Working as designed, they can help make tweaks to ads that improve their likelihood of being clicked. But advertisers say the tools are clunky and generate misrepresentations and absurdities.
Business Insider spoke with eight advertisers and agency execs who said dealing with Meta AI problems had become routine.
Jessica Gleim, an ads consultant who works with female-founded brands, told Business Insider she regularly sees odd outcomes in Meta's AI creative recommendations for ads she's working on.
For one of her clients, a pajama brand, Meta recommended new assets that altered the actual product. The brand was promoting a pajama dress, and Meta suggested a new image with a shirt and pants. For another client, a networking group for women in Montana, Meta had a new vision for those ads: adding men.
Meta AI's suggested changes to a women's group ad included adding a man. BI "It's not usable to help my clients grow their business," Gleim said.
While some of Meta's AI ad features are turned off by default, advertisers say they have been prone to bugs that accidentally turn them on. Karissa Tuccio, executive director of social and influencer at Mediassociates, said a bug that toggled AI settings on had regularly affected most of the 15 clients for whom she handles Meta advertising. She said she had flagged the bug to her Meta rep as recently as Thursday.
Meta's AI completely changed the product in this suggested ad tweak that Gleim encountered. BI Outdoor retailer REI drew consumer backlash last month for running an Instagram ad depicting a nonsensical bike with two handlebars. REI said Meta had "auto-enrolled" it in an AI feature that spat out an "inaccurate" and "inappropriate" image.
A Meta spokesperson said that the company's terms of service state that "AI can make mistakes and that it is the advertiser's responsibility to review the AI outputs."
Advertisers' chief complaint about Meta's AI ad tools is simple: They feel they have to double-check all the AI features for each campaign to make sure nothing is inadvertently switched on or has gone haywire. With some advertisers and agencies running hundreds or thousands of ads at any given time, the extra steps required to wrangle the AI tools create more work.
REI's AI ad accident drew a big online backlash from customers. BI "We somehow accepted that as a new standard operating procedure," said Rok Hladnik, CEO of the marketing agency Flat Circle, which manages around $200 million in annual Meta ad spending for numerous direct-to-consumer brands.
Brands and advertisers say that while AI failures can be an amusing talking point on the internet, they can pose real problems for a brand.
"When the AI starts generating weird creative or making unapproved changes, it can quietly damage brand perception — especially for anyone who cares about consistency," said Robert Webster, CEO of TAU Marketing, which manages around $500 million in annual ad spending across various platforms.
A Valentine's Day surpriseAround Valentine's Day, photographer and marketer Abigail Hogue was uploading an ad campaign to Meta. She works with a small business, Quite Literally Books, and had shot the creative assets for the holiday campaign with chocolates, macarons, candles, and books. Hogue was proud of the work she'd done.
"About 12 hours later, when everything was approved and started to run, I started getting some messages from friends and people that I knew and screenshots of some of these ads that were running, cheekily accusing me of AI slop," Hogue said.
The text on the products in the images was "garbled," and the "actual products look like knockoff iterations of themselves," she said.
Abigail Hogue was horrified at how Meta's AI altered her ad. Quite Literally Books; BI When Hogue saw the AI ad, she went into a panic and edited the campaign in Meta's Ads Manager, turned off all AI creative enhancements, and then republished the ads.
She then spent hours in a back-and-forth with Meta customer service. Representatives told her it was a "sporadic" and "one-off occurrence," and also said it was a "glitch," according to screenshots of their exchange viewed by Business Insider. She requested a refund, and Meta acknowledged her request. Quite Literally Books said it hadn't received a refund as of Friday afternoon.
Other advertisers have told Business Insider about their strange Meta AI ads, ranging from an unrealistic granny in loungewear to a model whose leg appeared to be completely bent the wrong way.
Luke Jonas, chief growth officer of the marketing agency Nest Commerce, emphasized the importance of keeping a human in the loop when testing AI-generated ads.
"A machine optimizing for 6 million advertisers will occasionally give you two handlebars," Jonas said, referencing the REI ad.
While two advertisers said Meta appeared to have fixed a bug that was toggling AI settings on for their clients, Mediassociates' Tuccio said a similar issue persisted for her as of last week.
Tuccio said a Meta rep told her last week that Meta had developed a quality-control dashboard for big advertisers to ensure their ads don't go live with unwanted AI enhancements.
"She mentioned, 'If you guys have a big launch coming up, you can send me all the ad IDs, and we have an internal dash that will check to make sure all of the enhancements have been fully turned off,'" Tuccio said. "So that leads me to believe it has not been resolved."
'Meta's still the best platform'Starting last month, Meta began automatically applying an "AI info label" to ads when they use its AI tools — or third-party tools like Midjourney or Dall-E — to create or significantly edit their ads. To see it, users must click the three dots above an ad, select "about this ad," and then tap on "AI info." Google added labels last week to indicate whether ads were created or edited using AI.
Meta is also improving its AI image generation models. Last week, it began rolling out Muse Image, a model developed by its Superintelligence Labs, which can help advertisers develop their creative assets. (Following backlash, Meta on Friday removed a feature in Muse Image that let users generate AI images from other people's public Instagram posts, saying it "missed the mark.")
Still, advertisers say Meta's basic design encourages relinquishing control to the system, which can lead to disastrous results.
"The defaults are aggressive, the toggles are easy to miss, and the system is clearly designed to reduce friction so more money flows through the platform with less manual intervention," TAU's Webster said.
Meta says "millions of advertisers are finding value and improved performance using our Advantage+ creative tools to support ad creation." The Meta spokesperson added that the company's AI image generation tool, which creates variations based on a seed image provided by the advertiser, is turned off by default.
Meta isn't alone in automatically modifying advertisers' creative. Google's Performance Max and AI Max products also use AI to scrape ad copy from brand websites and automatically crop or shorten videos for placements such as YouTube Shorts. Some of these AI automation features are enabled by default, though Google has largely avoided the kind of high-profile issues Meta has seen.
Danny Weisman, cofounder of Obsessed Media, said the main complaint he's heard about Google from brands is that ads made with its AI tools could turn out looking "ugly."
"It's not like someone's hand is missing," he said.
Meta's ad business, which pulled in around $196 billion in revenue last year, remains essential to most brands' customer acquisition strategies. Its reach of 3.5 billion daily active users and highly sophisticated ad targeting platform make it difficult to quit, even if problems arise.
"That means it can make unpopular decisions that boost its own profits with near impunity, because most advertisers cannot realistically walk away," TAU's Webster said.
Then there's the simple truth: Meta ads generally get results.
"Meta's still the best platform," Gleim said. "It has the most robust options. It has the most data."
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Lara O'Reilly You're currently following this author! Want to unfollow? Unsubscribe via the link in your email.
Lara O'Reilly is the anchor of the CMO Insider newsletter.She is a senior correspondent who has covered the digital advertising, marketing, and media industries since 2010. Her current beat includes big tech companies like Alphabet, and Meta, and adtech firms, agencies, publishers, the creator economy, and CMOs.Lara has previously worked as a reporter and executive producer at titles including The Wall Street Journal, Digiday, Yahoo Finance, and Marketing Week. She was previously Business Insider's senior global advertising editor from 2014 to 2017.Lara was named "Digital Journalist of the Year" by the London Press Club in 2016.Lara is a regular guest on TV and radio and has appeared on outlets such as the BBC, NPR, SiriusXM's Wharton Business Daily, and CTV Television Network. She also frequently speaks on stage at major events such as Web Summit, IFA, VivaTech, Advertising Week, and Cannes Lions.To get in touch with Lara O'Reilly, email [email protected] or contact her on Signal at @loreilly.71Check out Insider's source guide for tips on sharing information securely.Read some of Lara's recent work below:
Inside Amazon's plan to clobber rivals The Trade Desk and Google in a key area of advertisingMeet Cindy Rose, the former lawyer and top Microsoft exec set to become CEO of ad giant WPPHow X CEO Linda Yaccarino went from Elon Musk's fixer to out of a job in 2 yearsInside the political reckoning shaking up the ad industryMeet the 'reclusive' tech billionaire making an audacious bid to buy TikTokTop marketers are under a ton of pressure. They told me how they're trying to make themselves recession-proof.Big Tech workers got too used to perks. The pampering is over.
Sydney Bradley You're currently following this author! Want to unfollow? Unsubscribe via the link in your email.
Sydney Bradley has been covering media and tech for Business Insider since 2020. She breaks news and writes extensively about Instagram and Facebook, as well as new platforms and startups shaping social media, dating apps, the creator economy, venture capital, and tech culture.Sydney's reporting on Instagram was nominated as a finalist for the 2021 Los Angeles Press Club National Entertainment Journalism Awards.She graduated from the University of Virginia with a degree in American Studies. You can follow Sydney's work on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram at @sydneykbradley.Have a tip? You can also contact her via encrypted messaging app Signal (@sydneykbradley.123), encrypted email ([email protected]), or standard email ([email protected]). Use a personal email address, a nonwork WiFi network, and a nonwork device; here’s our guide to sharing information securely.Selected stories:
Young founders are going viral modeDeath isn't the end: Meta patented an AI that lets you keep posting from beyond the graveDating apps are betting millions that AI will convince you to fall back in love with themHitting the social media jackpot is harder than ever — and it's changing the creator economyBig Tech's AI obsession is rattling creatorsNew startups race to bring back the 'old internet' vibes of the 2000sThe mysterious demise of a $1 billion social shopping appThe loneliness epidemic has given rise to a new crop of startups aiming to help people connect in real lifeIt's not just you — no one is posting on social media anymoreHow Instagram's unpredictable changes are giving influencers whiplashWhy YouTube subscriber counts have become an unreliable 'vanity metric' in the era of short videoInside the week that changed Facebook forever
Lucia Moses You're currently following this author! Want to unfollow? Unsubscribe via the link in your email.
Lucia Moses covers the media and entertainment business, with a focus on creators. She's broken stories about MrBeast's business ambitions, Google's movie initiative, and Netflix's push into podcasts.Her reporting has won the Los Angeles Press Club's National Entertainment Journalism Awards.She previously worked at Digiday and Adweek and graduated from Cornell University.Reach her at [email protected], X at @lmoses, LinkedIn, or via phone/text/Signal at (917) 209-8549.Popular articles
MrBeast tries to cut down on his massive spending without killing the magicTikToker Khaby Lame's $975 million deal is riding on a crashing stockActors speak out against AI-generated promos that put them in fake sex scenesRob McElhenney is betting on himselfDisney has a kid crisisWhy Hollywood should be terrified of YouTube, not NetflixAmazon Studios is growing fast and spending big on shows like 'Citadel,' but insiders say unclear creative direction, leadership shifts, and tech bureaucracy threaten to drive away staff and talent
Meta (NASDAQ:META | META Price Prediction) is charging businesses to use one of its AI models for the first time, undercutting rivals significantly. On July 9, 2026, Meta launched Muse Spark 1.1, a frontier model’s paid developer tier costs roughly 25% of what OpenAI and Anthropic charge, meaning developers pay about 75% less. Mark Zuckerberg’s pitch: make AI cheap enough that everyone builds on Meta’s platform.
This marks a genuine pivot. Meta championed open-source AI; Muse Spark 1.1 is proprietary and revenue-focused. As Zuckerberg told Bloomberg on July 9, “Since this isn’t an open-source model, this is really the first time we’re seriously launching an API business.”
The Pitch in Zuckerberg’s Words Where rivals charge $5 to $10 per million input tokens and $30 to $50 per million output tokens, Meta costs roughly a quarter of that. Vals.ai found Muse Spark 1.1 runs at about one-tenth the cost of GPT-5.5, while AnalysisAI measured input costs roughly 75% below Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.8 and output costs about 83% lower. “The pricing is going to be very aggressive and attractive,” Zuckerberg framed it as a mission: “Someone has to build these models and make sure the highest quality intelligence is available to everyone.”
Why Meta Had to Do This Meta committed $125 to $145 billion in 2026 capex, its largest ever, with shares gaining 14.81% in the week ending July 10. In April, Zuckerberg said: “We had a milestone quarter with strong momentum across our apps and the release of our first model from Meta Superintelligence Labs.” Meta is co-developing a custom “Iris” AI chip with Broadcom, manufactured by TSMC, cutting Nvidia dependence and lowering inference costs. A leaked memo revealed plans to put Iris into production in September and double computing capacity to 14 gigawatts. Our AI infrastructure research covers second-order beneficiaries in this report on power and data-center names beyond chipmakers.
Ticker Exposure to Meta’s AI Buildout Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO) is tied to Iris and posted Q2 FY2026 AI semiconductor revenue of $10.8 billion, up 143% year over year. CEO Hock Tan said: “The momentum continues and in Q3 we expect semiconductor revenue from AI to grow over 200 percent year-over-year to $16.0 billion.” Taiwan Semiconductor (NYSE:TSM) fabricates both Iris and Nvidia GPUs. Its May 2026 revenue rose 30.1% year over year. SemiAnalysis projects Meta’s total AI compute will surpass OpenAI’s and Anthropic’s by year end.
The Open Question On July 2, he admitted AI “hasn’t really accelerated in the way we expected” internally, creating tension with this week’s bullish launch. Muse Spark 1.1 competes on price and capability while still trailing GPT-5.5 on outright performance. Meta’s true frontier model, “Watermelon,” is still in development. If it delivers, the bet gets interesting. If not, Meta may have started a price war it cannot win. Can 75%-cheaper AI earn back a $145 billion infrastructure bill?
Meet America's Newest $1b Unicorn (Sponsor) A US startup just passed a $1 billion private valuation, joining billion-dollar private companies like OpenAI and ByteDance. Unlike those other unicorns, you can invest in EnergyX right now; but only until July 16.
Over 50,000 people already have, along with global giants like General Motors and POSCO.
Here's why there's so much interest: EnergyX's patented tech can recover up to 3X more lithium than traditional methods. That's a big deal, as demand for lithium is expected to 5X current production levels by 2040. Become an early-stage EnergyX shareholder before the 7/16 investment deadline.
Meta’s First AI Monetization PushIn a note, JPMorgan said Meta’s newly launched Model API marks the company’s first meaningful step toward external AI monetization. The public preview allows developers to build applications using Meta’s latest Muse Spark 1.1 model, opening the door to revenue streams beyond the company’s core digital advertising business.
The bigger surprise, however, may be the price.
According to JPMorgan analyst Doug Anmuth, comments from a Bloomberg interview with CEO Mark Zuckerberg suggest Meta plans to charge roughly 25% of what leading AI models from OpenAI and Anthropic cost, a pricing strategy the bank believes could help Meta quickly gain traction with developers and enterprise customers.
“API pricing at a fraction of competitors should help Meta gain external monetization scale,” Anmuth said.
A New Front In The AI RaceThe aggressive pricing comes as Meta appears to be shifting from building AI solely for internal products to competing directly in the enterprise AI market.
He also pointed to early signs of a broader enterprise strategy following the launch of Meta’s Business Agent platform and Model API, calling the move an encouraging step toward monetizing AI outside advertising.
Making A Massive AI Bet Pay OffThe monetization push also helps answer one of Wall Street’s biggest questions: how Meta plans to generate returns on its enormous AI spending.
JPMorgan expects Meta’s capital expenditures to reach $142 billion in 2026, up 104% year over year, before climbing to $202 billion in 2027, with the potential for further increases.
At the same time, Reuters recently reported that Meta plans to expand its AI compute capacity to 7 gigawatts in 2026 and 14 gigawatts in 2027, giving the company enough infrastructure to support both its own AI products and new external businesses.
Beyond selling AI models through APIs, Anmuth also sees another opportunity. Zuckerberg recently suggested excess computing capacity could eventually be rented out, giving Meta the flexibility to monetize its infrastructure if it builds more capacity than its internal AI products require.
For now, JPMorgan remains Neutral on Meta with a $725 price target, but said the company’s improving AI models, early monetization efforts and willingness to expand beyond advertising could create upside if developer adoption and enterprise demand accelerate.
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Meta yanked its new Instagram AI image feature – which automatically opted in photos from all public accounts – just a few days after launch following heated backlash over privacy concerns.
“Our intent was to provide a useful creative tool and to give people control over whether their public content could be referenced in this way,” Meta said in a statement Friday.
“We’ve heard the feedback that this feature missed the mark, so it’s no longer available.”
Meta yanked its new Instagram AI image feature just a few days after launch following heated backlash. ZUMAPRESS.com The Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp owner last Tuesday launched Muse Image, its first AI image generator meant to compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT Images 2.0 and Google’s Nano Banana 2.
Meta’s Superintelligence Labs folded the new bot into Instagram and automatically enrolled all public accounts, meaning anyone on the internet could simply tag your username in an AI prompt and generate an image using your likeness.
Instagram accounts would not be notified about content created using the AI image tool, so your photos and videos could be transformed by other users without your knowledge – unless you manually turned off the feature in settings.
“This is diabolical,” one user wrote in a post on X, complaining that they were unable to turn off the feature. “It keeps automatically toggling it back on. I can’t turn it off unless I go private.”
Another user complained: “Basically now anyone can clone your voice, face easily on Insta. And even if you figure this privacy setting out and switch it off, some are reporting it turns on by itself. So I have a simple recommendation as always. Stop using Meta’s products.”
Many online blasted Meta for automatically enrolling public accounts, with one writing, “Classic Instagram making us do homework just to keep our privacy,” while another wrote, “If a feature requires harvesting my identity, it should never start as a ‘yes.’”
Others argued that Meta had likely automatically enrolled accounts because the public remains skeptical of artificial intelligence.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg arrives for a trial over whether social media apps are deliberately addictive for children in Los Angeles on Feb. 18. AP Photo/Ryan Sun “AI features like this in Meta and Google services are opt in by default because they get to show their reports as NUMBER GO UP, after pouring billions into AI that NO ONE WANTS!” one infuriated user wrote.
“Damn theyre [sic] trying real hard to force their slop down eveyrone’s [sic] throat,” another jibed.
Yet another asked: “How is there not 1 [sic] sensible human on that leadership team to say, ‘Oh wait, our customers hate this slop. Maybe we shouldn’t force it on them?’”
People also shared difficulties turning off the feature through the web browser version of Instagram, saying they needed to download the app to opt-out of the tool.
Emmy-winning actor and “Hacks” star Hannah Einbinder slammed the feature in a post on Instagram, as did SAG-AFTRA, the union representing Hollywood actors and workers.
After Meta scrapped the feature, a spokesperson for the union said: “With the dangers of nonconsensual digital replicas well known to all, a feature that encouraged that behavior is unwise. We appreciate its discontinuance. It is the responsible thing to do.”
It’s not the first AI image generator to face backlash, after Elon Musk’s Grok launched a similar tool earlier this year.
His AI company is currently facing a class-action lawsuit and an EU privacy investigation after Grok allowed users to “nudify” images of real women and children on social-media platform X.
Apple reportedly privately threatened to remove Grok from its App Store in January over the deepfake controversy.
Meta expands its Louisiana data center to 5 gigawatts while total expected investment could exceed $250 billion. Summary
Meta accelerates AI infrastructure with its largest data center project yet.
Meta Platforms META , the company behind Facebook and a major builder of artificial intelligence infrastructure, is preparing to commit substantially more capital to its data center campus in rural Louisiana as it races to secure additional computing power. Meta announced that the Richland Parish project will expand to at least 5 gigawatts of computing capacity at a cost of $50 billion, compared with the company's previously disclosed $10 billion investment. Bloomberg previously reported that Meta could spend another $200 billion on the development, largely for the expensive computing chips expected to operate inside the nearly 4,000-acre site. Including those costs, the total expected investment could exceed $250 billion, according to a person familiar with the financing, although Meta has publicly disclosed only $50 billion of spending for the project.
Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg has increased infrastructure spending over the past two years as he seeks the data center capacity needed to pursue AI superintelligence. Meta currently has 33 data centers either completed or under active development, while Zuckerberg has pledged to invest at least $600 billion in U.S. infrastructure projects over the next several years. The company also committed $10 billion last week to build its first data center in Canada, suggesting that access to AI computing capacity remains a central part of Meta's expansion strategy. Zuckerberg said Meta continues to seek as much computing power as it can obtain, while the company is also considering renting some capacity to outside customers through a possible cloud infrastructure business.
The scale of the Louisiana development has brought in additional financial and power-sector partners. Blue Owl Capital OWL , an outside investor that owns an 80% stake in the project, has approached Wall Street for billions of dollars to help finance construction, while Entergy Louisiana, the utility supporting the campus, is spending billions to build 10 gas-fired power plants. Meta said the completed data center will support 1,000 jobs, twice its earlier commitment, and has already generated more than $1.6 billion in contracts for Louisiana businesses since construction began in December 2024. Investors may also watch whether Meta's infrastructure spending eventually creates a new source of revenue, as the company has discussed selling access to raw computing capacity through a model resembling CoreWeave, a neocloud computing provider.
Meta (META), a technology giant expanding its artificial intelligence infrastructure, is increasing the scale of its Hyperion AI data center supercluster in rur
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Meta's massive Hyperion data center project in rural Louisiana is getting much bigger and costlier, with a big assist from the state's government.
The company said in a blog post on Monday that the site in Richland Parish, Louisiana — home to what will be Meta's largest data center — will be a 5GW facility and cost over $50 billion. That's higher than the $27 billion figure that was revealed in October, when Meta and Blue Owl Capital formed a joint venture to help with the buildout and management of the facility, originally planned as a 2GW data center.
As Meta pursues its multi-hundred-billion-dollar buildout artificial intelligence buildout, the company and hyperscaler rivals Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon are taking advantage of tax rebates and energy deals being offered by states that are fighting to get a piece of the AI boom.
In late 2024, Louisiana Republican Governor Jeff Landry signed into law a 20-year sales tax exemption for data centers built before 2029 as part of an effort to court Meta in the state, CNBC previously reported. Landry is set to host a press event on Monday in Baton Rouge.
"I'm a business guy," Landry told CNBC in an interview last year. "What we know is when you look at the overall comprehensive package here, it's in the black. For local government, and the state, and how you get to the bottom line is irrespective to me."
Meta is expanding the project as it seeks to build out enough AI infrastructure to meet demand. The announcement comes after Meta had its best week on the stock market since early 2024 following the release of two major AI models under the leadership of AI chief Alexandr Wang, head of Meta Superintelligence Labs. Investors have been looking for the company to start showing returns on its outsized AI investments.
Meta said in Monday's post that the company "pays the full costs of the energy, water, and related infrastructure the data center uses so consumers aren't paying the cost." Since construction of the Louisiana data center began in December 2024, local businesses have received over $1.6 billion in contracts from Meta, the company said.
"With this expansion, we will be investing over $1 billion in local infrastructure improvements, including roads, water and wastewater systems," Meta said in the post. The company didn't announce a financial partner for the expansion.
When the project began, the estimated price tag was $10 billion. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post roughly six months later that the supercluster, named Hyperion, would be "able to scale up to 5GW over several years." Unlike traditional data centers, superclusters are packed with graphics processing units and related cutting-edge hardware tailored for AI workloads.
"Meta Superintelligence Labs will have industry-leading levels of compute and by far the greatest compute per researcher," Zuckerberg wrote.
A Meta spokesperson told CNBC that the Hyperion project should reach 2GW by 2030, but there's no timeline for when the full 5GW project will be completed.
People walk behind a logo of Meta Platforms company, during a conference in Mumbai, India, September 20, 2023. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
CompaniesJuly 13 (Reuters) - Meta (META.O), opens new tab said on Monday its data center in Richland Parish, Louisiana, will expand to 5 gigawatts of compute capacity, with investment in the project increasing to more than $50 billion.
The planned data center, known as Hyperion, was earlier projected to deliver more than 2 gigawatts of compute capacity to support training of large language models, the technology behind tools such as ChatGPT.
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Here are some details:
The announcement comes as environmental and consumer groups increasingly push back against the energy-intensive buildout.
U.S. environmental law group Earthjustice's request to investigate the financing of Meta's Louisiana data center project was denied earlier this year.
Earthjustice had said the financing arrangement could ultimately shift project costs unfairly onto utility customers if Meta walks away from the project before the utility recovers its investment.
Last year, U.S. President Donald Trump had said the company's data center project would cost $50 billion.
Since breaking ground in December 2024, local Louisiana businesses have received more than $1.6 billion in contracts from Meta, the company said.
With this expansion, the company said it plans to invest over $1 billion in local infrastructure improvements, including roads, water and wastewater systems.
Meta, like its Big Tech peers, has been pouring billions of dollars into AI data centers and computing power, as demand continues to outstrip supply.
The company has pledged to invest $600 billion in U.S. infrastructure and jobs over the next three years, as it builds out massive data centers to power CEO Mark Zuckerberg's aggressive bets on AI agent technologies.
Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Leroy Leo and Devika Syamnath
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