NEW YORK, June 8, 2026, 13:01 EDT
Meta Platforms fell again Monday as investors reacted to talk that the Facebook owner could look to sell tens of billions in stock to pay for AI expansion. Shares dropped 0.8% to $587.97. The move comes after the stock slid 5.5% Friday when the news first hit.
Big Tech’s push in AI is shifting into capital markets. Alphabet boosted its equity offerings to $84.75 billion last week, signaling heavy demand for AI financings. But it’s also a signal that more equity supply could hit the market from sector leaders.
Big stock offerings bring new shares to market, raising money for companies but risking dilution for holders if the share count jumps. Bloomberg said listings from SpaceX, Anthropic, and OpenAI could heap almost $4 trillion onto U.S. exchange market caps. Alphabet is preparing its own stock sale, about $85 billion, with much of that to be sold straight to the public.
Meta execs have been looking at “creative” fundraising ideas, Reuters said, citing the Financial Times. Those talks picked up after Alphabet’s cash raise. Meta hasn’t hired banks, hasn’t made a call on whether to issue new shares, and is still considering all financing options, according to the report. Reuters
Meta’s latest results show why the question matters. Revenue for the first quarter hit $56.31 billion, rising 33%. Diluted EPS was $10.44, up 62%. Ad impressions climbed 19% and the average price per ad moved up 12%. Capital spending came in at $19.84 billion for the quarter. For 2026, Meta lifted its capex outlook to a range of $125 billion to $145 billion.
Meta CFO Susan Li told analysts in April that compute was growing more important for the company’s AI efforts. Li said Meta was “investing aggressively” in infrastructure, such as data centers, supply-chain deals, and cloud agreements. Those deals led to a $107 billion jump in Meta’s contractual commitments for the quarter. Q4 Updates
Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg pointed to the company’s spending as key for its next lineup of products. “We’re on track to deliver personal superintelligence to billions of people,” Zuckerberg said after Meta reported first-quarter numbers. Meta
Competition is still tough. Goldman Sachs now sees capital spending by the top four hyperscalers — Meta, Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet — hitting $5.3 trillion between 2025 and 2030, Reuters reported, citing a column. That’s up from $4.5 trillion before the first-quarter earnings, according to the same note.
Some investors say the stock supply is manageable. Ano Kuhanathan, head of corporate research at Allianz Trade, called it “a huge supply event” in comments to Bloomberg. Nicholas Colas, co-founder of DataTrek Research, wrote there is “plenty of capital” able to take in new AI-related stock and IPOs. Fortune
The outcome isn’t set yet. Meta could use debt, look at project financing or joint ventures, or add capacity more slowly instead of selling shares. Its first-quarter balance sheet showed $81.18 billion in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities. If the stock falls, pricing a big share sale gets tougher and investors might want more proof that AI spending brings steady revenue.
Risks aren’t just about finances. Meta says it is still watching legal and regulatory issues in the EU and U.S., naming youth-focused scrutiny that might lead to a big loss. Rising rate bets have also battered growth stocks. Reuters said the tech rout on Friday erased around $2 trillion from U.S. shares.
Meta’s main issue right now isn’t weakness in its core business. The question is whether big AI winners like Meta can keep pouring cash into AI and still offer the same terms to shareholders. Rob Arnott, founder of Research Affiliates, told Bloomberg that constant share sales and rotations in the index could put “drip, drip pressure” on the stock as funds make space for incoming AI plays. Fortune
