NEW YORK, February 8, 2026, 02:54 EST
- Meta shares dropped, with investors raising concerns over the rising costs of Big Tech’s AI push.
- Meta is projecting capital expenditures as high as $135 billion for 2026.
- Bulls point to ad growth and AI advances. Bears, though, flag pressure on cash flow.
Meta Platforms slipped 1.3% Friday, with investors balking at the escalating costs of artificial intelligence—despite Meta’s framing AI as its future growth driver. “The market’s viewpoint is that the AI build-out trade … got too pricey,” according to Andrew Wells, chief investment officer at SanJac Alpha. 1
Timing is critical here. Major U.S. tech giants have posted figures that seem less about fueling another “investment cycle” and more in line with a stress test scenario, prompting markets to push for results. “Investors right now are not forgiving about large investments without clear signal on return on invested capital,” Morgan Stanley analysts said. 2
Meta shares slumped as the industry digested bold spending signals from rivals. Amazon and Alphabet have also stumbled in recent sessions after highlighting much steeper budgets. Nvidia, a supplier of AI chips and servers, headed higher instead.
Meta is projecting capex for 2026 in the range of $115 billion to $135 billion—well above the $72.22 billion marked for 2025, its latest quarterly statement shows. That spend covers big-ticket items like data centers, servers, and chips. 3
Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive, is pitching the company’s latest initiative as a sprint toward “personal superintelligence.” He told analysts to expect “a big year” for infrastructure and internal operations. The uptick in spending, Reuters reported, comes from rising third-party cloud charges, more depreciation tied to AI data-center assets, and steeper infrastructure operating costs. 4
Advertising remains at the heart of Meta’s operations, and the latest earnings numbers help explain why investors have put up with higher expenses. For the fourth quarter, revenue climbed 24% from a year earlier, landing at $59.89 billion. Daily user numbers across Meta’s suite of apps averaged 3.58 billion in December 2025, a metric the company calls “family daily active people.” Free cash flow for the quarter checked in at $14.08 billion after deducting costs and investment outlays.
All that has sparked speculation from bulls that Meta might one day join Nvidia and Alphabet in the $4 trillion club—though that milestone could be a long way off. On Friday, The Motley Fool made the case that Meta’s dominance in social media and advertising could help push its valuation to that mark by 2032. 5
A recent Motley Fool article zeroed in on the near-term hit: with Meta ramping up AI investments, both depreciation and research expenses are eating into profits. The report pegged operating margin at 41% for 2025, down from 48% in Q4 2024. It also noted Meta is still in the early stages of integrating large language models—the tech behind chatbots—into its recommendation and ad products. 6
Skeptics aren’t backing down. The Value Portfolio, posting on Seeking Alpha, argued Meta’s leap after earnings “isn’t justified.” The note flags rising capex and Reality Labs’ ongoing red ink as risks, suggesting these could squeeze future free cash flow, leaving investors on the hook for growth that may take its time to materialize. 7
Here’s the risk: a slowdown hurts, plain and simple. When companies slash marketing budgets, ad spending slips, and that hits Meta. The AI push just adds fixed costs that aren’t easy to unwind in a hurry. If those investments fail to show up in the top line, you could see the stock knocked down—even if user numbers look healthy.
The broader market’s tone can shift fast. “This is the first time we’ve seen the large-cap tech companies … go through a really large capex cycle … and we’re seeing this volatility about whether this investment will translate, ultimately, into results,” said Tom Hainlin, investment strategist at U.S. Bank Wealth Management. 8
For Meta, the immediate questions are more about execution than big-picture strategy: Can it keep ad prices and impressions climbing? Will expenses stay in check? And as data-center investments accelerate, does cash flow remain solid? Wall Street’s eye is on these metrics industry-wide, but Meta’s $135 billion headline figure has turned it into perhaps the most obvious gauge.
