Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ: META) is back at the center of several big storylines on December 4, 2025: a new EU antitrust investigation into its WhatsApp AI policy, escalating AI infrastructure spending that could push annual capex above $100 billion, a high‑profile design hire from Apple, and a fresh wave of bullish and cautious analyst forecasts.
At the same time, the stock is trading well below its 2025 highs, even as the underlying advertising business continues to post strong double‑digit growth.
This article pulls together the key news, forecasts, and analyses around META as of December 4, 2025, and explains what they mean for investors watching the stock.
META stock price today and recent performance
As of midday on December 4, 2025, Meta Platforms shares are trading around $640 per share, giving the company a market capitalization in the neighborhood of $1.8 trillion. [1]
Data from StockAnalysis shows: [2]
- Last close: $639.60 (Dec 3, 2025), down about 1.2% on the day
- Pre‑market (Dec 4): around $644.50
- 52‑week range: $479.80 – $796.25
- Trailing EPS (ttm): about $22.6
- Trailing P/E: ~28x
- Forward P/E: ~21–22x
- Dividend yield: roughly 0.33%, based on an annual payout of about $2.10 per share
The stock is still 20–25% below its October 2025 all‑time high of $796.25, following a sharp post‑earnings sell‑off triggered by Meta’s updated AI capex plans. TS2 Tech+1
In other words: the business is operating at record scale and profitability, but the market is digesting what a permanently higher spending baseline means for Meta’s long‑term earnings power.
Q3 2025 earnings: very strong core business, messy headline profit
The current META debate starts with Q3 2025 results.
According to Meta’s official Q3 release for the quarter ended September 30, 2025: [3]
- Revenue: $51.24 billion, up 26% year over year
- Income from operations: $20.54 billion, up 18%
- Operating margin: about 40% (also highlighted in the earnings call transcript) [4]
- Family daily active people (DAP): 3.54 billion, +8% YoY
- Ad impressions: +14% YoY
- Average price per ad: +10% YoY
- Q3 capital expenditures: $19.37 billion
Segment data showed: [5]
- Family of Apps (FoA) revenue: $50.77 billion, with operating income of $24.97 billion
- Reality Labs (RL) revenue: $470 million, with an operating loss of $4.43 billion
The headline number that spooked some investors was net income of just $2.71 billion, which looked like a collapse in profitability. But that figure was distorted by a one‑time, non‑cash tax charge of $15.93 billion related to new U.S. tax legislation. Excluding that charge, diluted EPS would have been about $7.25 instead of $1.05, and the effective tax rate would have been roughly 14% instead of 87%. [6]
Fundamentally, Q3 showed:
- The ad machine is healthy: volumes up, pricing up, and engagement growing across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
- Reality Labs remains a large money pit, but one that is still relatively small compared with the FoA profit engine.
The real tension comes not from current profits, but from how much Meta is willing to spend on AI for years ahead.
The AI spending shock: capex 2025–2026
The single biggest driver of the post‑earnings META sell‑off is its AI infrastructure spending plan.
From Meta’s Q3 outlook: [7]
- 2025 total expenses: expected at $116–118 billion (22–24% YoY growth)
- 2025 capital expenditures: raised to $70–72 billion, up from a prior range of $66–72 billion
- Q3 2025 alone saw $19.37 billion in capex
Management also warned that 2026 spending will be even heavier:
Meta expects capital expenditures “dollar growth” to be notably larger in 2026 than 2025, and total expenses to grow at a significantly faster percentage rate in 2026, driven mostly by infrastructure costs — incremental cloud expenses and depreciation — plus higher compensation for AI talent. [8]
A recent analysis syndicated on Nasdaq (from The Motley Fool) estimates that, based on this language, 2026 capex could reach around $110 billion, up from $39.2 billion in 2024 and roughly $71 billion expected in 2025. [9]
That article highlights three key points: [10]
- Meta’s ad business and free cash flow remain strong.
- However, capex is rising so fast that the company increasingly resembles a capital‑intensive infrastructure provider rather than a light‑asset ad platform.
- With the stock trading near the high‑20s P/E, the risk is that future earnings growth lags the capex surge once depreciation fully flows through the income statement.
On December 1, TechStock² framed the situation as an “AI capex shock vs. long‑term upside”: the stock is about 20–25% below its October highs, but still rated Buy or Strong Buy by most analysts, with 12‑month price targets implying high‑20% upside from early‑December levels. TS2 Tech
In short, the market now believes the capex cycle is real, large, and long‑lasting. Whether that’s a problem depends on how much revenue and margin expansion Meta can wring out of its AI efforts.
New EU antitrust probe into WhatsApp AI policy
On December 4, 2025, Meta’s regulatory risks in Europe escalated.
EU antitrust regulators formally opened an investigation into Meta’s new policy governing AI providers’ access to WhatsApp, which is set to apply from January 2026. [11]
According to the European Commission and reporting from Reuters: [12]
- The Commission is concerned the policy may prevent rival AI providers from reaching customers via WhatsApp,
- while Meta’s in‑house Meta AI assistant would remain accessible on the platform.
- EU antitrust chief Teresa Ribera said regulators must prevent dominant digital incumbents from using their power to “crowd out innovative competitors” in AI.
CoinCentral, which had reported earlier in the day that the Commission was preparing the probe, noted that Meta’s stock fell around 1.16% on the news, reflecting concerns that further restrictions or remedies could weigh on Meta’s AI rollout in Europe. [13]
The investigation sits on top of other European issues Meta itself flagged in its Q3 commentary, including the risk that changes to its “Less Personalized Ads” offering could significantly impact European revenue as early as this quarter. [14]
For investors, the message is clear: regulatory risk is now directly tied to AI strategy, not just privacy and content moderation.
Talent wars and hardware ambitions: Meta poaches Apple’s design chief
Another major storyline this week is about talent and hardware.
On December 3, Reuters reported that Meta has hired Alan Dye, Apple’s longtime head of human interface design, as Meta’s chief design officer, effective December 31, 2025. [15]
Key details: [16]
- Dye joined Apple in 2006 and has led its human interface design team since 2015.
- He helped shape the look and feel of flagship products such as the iPhone X, Apple Watch, and the Vision Pro headset, as well as major OS redesigns like iOS 7.
- Meta is positioning him to lead design across its Reality Labs division and a new creative studio focused on AI‑powered consumer devices and wearables.
The hire underscores:
- Meta’s intention to compete seriously in AR/VR and smart glasses, not just as a side bet.
- The intensity of the Silicon Valley AI talent war, with Meta aggressively recruiting from rivals to support its long‑term hardware and AI roadmap.
Meta already partners with EssilorLuxottica’s Ray‑Ban and Oakley brands on AI‑enabled smart glasses; bringing in Apple’s top interface designer signals that the company wants to refine the user experience to mass‑market levels. [17]
Meta’s new SAM 3 model: AI as a data and ad engine
On December 3, Finviz highlighted analyst optimism around Meta’s Segment Anything Model 3 (SAM 3), launched on November 19. [18]
According to that report: [19]
- SAM 3 is a promptable computer vision system that can detect, segment, and track visual concepts based on text prompts, image examples, or both.
- The model dramatically speeds up annotation:
- Roughly 5× faster than human annotators for negative prompts
- About 36% faster for positive prompts
- Meta has built a dataset of around 4 million unique visual concepts, which can feed into better understanding of objects in images and video.
Citizens reiterated a Market Outperform rating on META with a $900 price target, arguing that SAM 3 and similar AI advances can: [20]
- Improve Meta’s ability to optimize ads and content,
- Strengthen its data moat relative to other social and ad platforms,
- Act as a tailwind for user engagement and ad performance across the Family of Apps.
Seeking Alpha’s “Meta: The Next Google (Rating Upgrade)” piece goes further, calling Meta a potential next major AI beneficiary, citing a roughly $60 billion AI‑powered ad tech suite and open‑source Llama strategy as key pillars of a new, high‑margin AI ecosystem layered on top of Meta’s existing ad business. [21]
Dividend, buybacks, and cash returns
Meta is no longer just a hyper‑growth story; it’s also returning cash to shareholders.
On December 3, 2025, the board declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.525 per share on both Class A and Class B shares, payable on December 23, 2025 to shareholders of record as of December 15, 2025. [22]
At the current share price, that equates to an annualized yield around 0.33%. [23]
From the Q3 release: [24]
- Q3 capital expenditures: $19.37 billion
- Share repurchases: $3.16 billion
- Dividend and dividend equivalent payments: $1.33 billion
24/7 Wall St. notes that Meta’s free cash flow (FCF) has surged in recent years, from about $21 billion in 2019 to over $52 billion in 2024, helping to fund both the AI build‑out and shareholder returns at the same time. [25]
The catch: as capex ramps toward $70+ billion in 2025 and potentially over $100 billion in 2026, there is less room for aggressive buybacks if Meta wants to keep leverage low — a key concern for more cautious analysts. [26]
Institutional flows and insider activity
A December 4 MarketBeat report highlights continued institutional interest. Insigneo Advisory Services LLC increased its stake in Meta by 8.9% in Q2, to 40,544 shares worth about $29.9 million, making META the firm’s eighth‑largest position and 2.6% of its holdings. Other wealth managers and funds also added to positions during the quarter. [27]
TechStock²’s December 1 roundup, drawing on MarketBeat and Quiver Quant data, adds broader context: TS2 Tech
- Roughly 79.9% of Meta’s float is held by institutions.
- Over the last six months, 2,626 institutional investors increased their META holdings while 1,879 reduced them — active but broadly supportive positioning.
- Insider selling has been heavy: 349 insider sales and zero insider purchases in six months, including sizable disposals by CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other top executives.
- U.S. lawmakers reportedly executed 22 trades in META over six months, 20 of them buys, suggesting some political insiders view the AI build‑out as an opportunity.
Heavy insider selling is not unusual after a multi‑year rally, but it does act as a sentiment overhang in combination with the capex surge.
Wall Street analyst sentiment and price targets
Despite volatility, sell‑side sentiment remains strongly positive.
Data compiled by StockAnalysis shows: [28]
- 45 analysts cover META.
- Average 12‑month price target:$820.91, implying about 28% upside from recent prices.
- Target range:
- Low: $645
- Median: about $810–840
- High: $1,117
- Consensus rating: “Strong Buy.”
24/7 Wall St. compiles a similar picture, noting: [29]
- High Street target: $1,117.00
- Median target: $839.10
- Low target: $685.00
- A consensus Buy recommendation from 60+ analysts
- Its own house forecast puts META at $875.46 within a year, and projects a 2030 price of about $1,216.82, roughly 88% above current levels, assuming revenue continues to grow and net income briefly dips before re‑accelerating later in the decade.
On top of that:
- Bank of America has reiterated a Buy rating with a $900 price target, citing Meta’s user scale and AI monetization potential. [30]
- Cantor Fitzgerald maintains an Overweight rating with a $920 target. [31]
- Citizens recently reiterated Market Outperform with a $900 target, specifically pointing to SAM 3 and other AI initiatives as reasons for optimism. [32]
Not all commentary is purely bullish, though. The Nasdaq‑syndicated Motley Fool piece titled “Why I’m Rethinking My Bullish Stance on Meta Platforms Stock” argues that capex marching toward an estimated $110 billion in 2026 makes it harder to view META as a classic asset‑light compounder at ~29× earnings. [33]
This tension — great business, heavier cost structure — is at the heart of today’s valuation debate.
Quant and algorithmic forecasts: CoinCodex and others
Algorithm‑driven forecast sites add another lens, though these models are technical and statistical rather than fundamental and should be treated with caution.
CoinCodex currently projects: [34]
- Next 5 days:
- Dec 5, 2025: $639.60
- Dec 9, 2025: $664.39
- Implied 3.9% gain over the next week
- December 2025 range:
- Minimum: $639.60
- Average: $667.60
- Maximum: $686.97
- 1‑year forecast: about $390.67, which would be roughly 39% below current levels
- 2030 forecast: about $754.67, or ~18% above current prices
These numbers underline how model‑dependent and uncertain long‑range price predictions are. Even within a single framework, you can get short‑term upside combined with bearish 1‑year projections and moderate long‑term gains.
“AI spending spree” vs. “underrated AI giant”: what recent analyses say
A wave of December commentary captures two very different narratives about META.
The cautious view: capex could crimp returns
The “Why I’m Rethinking My Bullish Stance” analysis emphasizes: [35]
- Capex rose from $39.2 billion in 2024 to a projected ~$71 billion in 2025.
- Free cash flow in Q3 2025 fell to $10.6 billion from $15.5 billion a year earlier, despite 26% revenue growth, because so much cash is now going into servers and data centers.
- If 2026 capex indeed approaches $110 billion, depreciation will climb sharply, potentially slowing earnings growth even if the business remains operationally strong.
Another widely circulated piece, “Is Meta Stock a Buy After Its AI Spending Spree?”, notes that: [36]
- Meta is aggressively building AI data centers, servers, and network infrastructure ahead of demand.
- Yet it still delivered impressive revenue and operating income growth, with over 3.5 billion people using at least one Meta app daily in September 2025.
- For long‑term investors with high risk tolerance, the article argues, META can still make sense — but the ride is likely to be volatile.
The bullish view: Meta is an underrated AI platform
In contrast, another Motley Fool–syndicated article titled “Could This Be the Most Underrated Artificial Intelligence Play on Wall Street?” makes the case that Meta is a major AI winner hiding in plain sight: [37]
- Meta uses AI to power both ad targeting and personalized content feeds across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp.
- Its multi‑billion‑user data moat gives it a unique advantage in training and deploying AI models.
- Yet investors often focus on chipmakers and cloud providers (Nvidia, Microsoft, etc.) when they think about AI, leaving Meta somewhat underappreciated as an AI platform.
Zacks, meanwhile, groups Meta with Alphabet, Nvidia, Microsoft, Cisco, and MongoDB as part of a broader AI trade that it believes is still early, arguing that: [38]
- AI‑related capex by companies like Meta and Alphabet is massive, but valuations are still far from dot‑com bubble extremes.
- AI adoption is just beginning to drive a productivity and software usage boom, which may support earnings for years.
Investment takeaways: bull vs. bear case as of December 4, 2025
Putting all of this together, the state of the META stock story today looks something like this:
Bull case
- Core business firing on all cylinders
- AI as a force multiplier
- Llama models, SAM 3, and Meta AI assistants integrated across apps could improve ad yield and engagement while enabling new revenue streams. [41]
- Valuation vs. growth
- Roughly high‑20s trailing P/E and low‑20s forward P/E for a company growing revenue in the mid‑20s, with a fortress balance sheet and large free cash flow. [42]
- Shareholder returns and maturity
- Regular dividend (0.33% yield) plus ongoing buybacks, signalling confidence in long‑term cash generation. [43]
- Talent and ecosystem advantages
- Poaching Apple’s top design executive, plus deep partnerships and a huge developer and advertiser ecosystem, strengthens Meta’s long‑term competitive position. [44]
Bear case
- Capex shock and changing business profile
- Capex potentially rising from ~$39 billion (2024) to ~$71 billion (2025) and perhaps ~$110 billion (2026) fundamentally changes Meta from an asset‑light ad platform into a capital‑intensive AI infrastructure player, with higher depreciation and more volatile returns. [45]
- Regulatory heat, especially in Europe
- The EU antitrust investigation into WhatsApp’s AI policy and ongoing scrutiny of Less Personalized Ads create real risk of revenue and product constraints in a key region. [46]
- Reality Labs losses and hardware execution risk
- Reality Labs continues to lose billions per quarter, and hardware markets for AR/VR and smart glasses remain unproven at mass‑market scale. [47]
- Sentiment and insider selling
- Heavy insider selling, alongside a major capex ramp, makes some investors question whether management’s risk‑reward calculus aligns perfectly with minority shareholders. TS2 Tech+1
Bottom line: a high‑quality business entering a high‑stakes phase
As of December 4, 2025, Meta Platforms sits at a crossroads:
- The advertising and engagement metrics look excellent, and the company is arguably one of the most powerful AI platforms on the planet.
- Yet management has chosen to front‑load an enormous AI investment cycle, potentially pushing annual capex into the $100‑billion‑plus range while simultaneously fighting major regulatory battles, especially in Europe.
Analysts overwhelmingly rate the stock a Buy or Strong Buy, with consensus 12‑month price targets implying around 25–30% upside and some long‑range forecasts pointing to 70–90% upside by 2030. [48]
Whether META ultimately lives up to those expectations will depend on:
- How quickly AI improves ad yield and opens new revenue lines,
- How heavy the regulatory and political drag turns out to be, and
- How disciplined Meta remains in balancing capex, Reality Labs bets, and shareholder returns.
For now, META is a high‑quality, cash‑rich platform business that has chosen to play offense in AI at enormous scale. That makes the stock simultaneously appealing and risky, especially for investors who prefer neat, low‑capex compounding machines.
References
1. stockanalysis.com, 2. stockanalysis.com, 3. www.prnewswire.com, 4. s21.q4cdn.com, 5. investor.atmeta.com, 6. www.prnewswire.com, 7. investor.atmeta.com, 8. investor.atmeta.com, 9. www.nasdaq.com, 10. www.nasdaq.com, 11. www.reuters.com, 12. www.reuters.com, 13. coincentral.com, 14. investor.atmeta.com, 15. www.reuters.com, 16. www.reuters.com, 17. www.reuters.com, 18. finviz.com, 19. finviz.com, 20. finviz.com, 21. seekingalpha.com, 22. www.prnewswire.com, 23. stockanalysis.com, 24. investor.atmeta.com, 25. 247wallst.com, 26. www.nasdaq.com, 27. www.marketbeat.com, 28. stockanalysis.com, 29. 247wallst.com, 30. 247wallst.com, 31. 247wallst.com, 32. finviz.com, 33. www.nasdaq.com, 34. coincodex.com, 35. www.nasdaq.com, 36. finviz.com, 37. www.sharewise.com, 38. finviz.com, 39. www.prnewswire.com, 40. www.prnewswire.com, 41. finviz.com, 42. stockanalysis.com, 43. www.prnewswire.com, 44. www.reuters.com, 45. www.nasdaq.com, 46. www.reuters.com, 47. investor.atmeta.com, 48. stockanalysis.com
