Meta sent its stock tumbling after telling Wall Street it plans to spend between $125 billion and $145 billion on AI infrastructure in 2026, a bigger bill than investors were expecting and one that briefly sent shares down as much as 12% in after-hours trading. The stock closed the next day roughly 8.6% lower, its worst single-day decline since October 2025.
The new range tops Meta’s earlier estimate of $115 billion to $135 billion and, at the midpoint, is roughly double what the company spent in 2025. Susan Li said the jump was driven by escalating component costs and additional data-center expenses, while Mark Zuckerberg said the AI strategy will pay off over the long term.
The size of the spending plan matters because Meta is asking investors to fund a race that still has no direct payoff. The company currently generates $0 in revenue from its AI products, even as it has talked up AI assistants, open-source models such as Llama, and plans to weave AI through Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
That leaves Meta in a different position from Amazon, Microsoft and Google, whose cloud platforms can already generate revenue from AI products. Meta is building the infrastructure first and promising the returns later, a sequence investors have seen before from the company during its metaverse push through Reality Labs, which consumed billions with limited consumer adoption and little revenue to show for it.
The market’s reaction suggests the latest plan crosses a line from aggressive investment to open-ended expense. Meta is still betting that AI will become central to its apps and ad business, but for now the meta stock price is trading on faith that the payoff will arrive before patience runs out.
