New York, July 12, 2026, 14:04 EDT
Meta Platforms, Inc. NASDAQ:META jumped 6.0% to close at $669.21 on Friday, capping off a 14.8% gain for the week — its biggest since at least February 2024. The move leaves Meta with a market value near $1.72 trillion heading into the weekend, up about $221 billion across five sessions.
The gain is roughly 1.5x Meta’s $125 billion-to-$145 billion capital spending plan for 2026. This isn’t cash Meta holds. It means investors are starting to see Meta’s expensive AI infrastructure as something that could be sold, not just as a cost.
| Last week | Meta | S&P 500 | Nasdaq Composite |
|---|---|---|---|
| Friday | up 6.0% | added 0.4% | up 0.3% |
| Full week | jumped 14.8% | gained 1.2% | rose 1.7% |
Index changes compare to Friday’s close.
Meta is moving to scale up its AI plans, according to an internal memo seen by Reuters. The company wants to roll out 7 gigawatts of computing infrastructure in 2026 and push total capacity to 14 gigawatts in 2027. One gigawatt can power about 800,000 homes. Meta also aims to start making its own Iris AI chip in September. Broadcom Inc. NASDAQ:AVGO is working with Meta on the design. “You can’t become an AI titan if you are dependent on another company for chips,” Mike Gualtieri, analyst at Forrester Research NASDAQ:FORR, told Reuters. Reuters
Meta made Muse Spark 1.1 available to U.S. developers via an application programming interface, or API, opening the door for outside programs to access the AI model. Pricing is at $1.25 for each million input tokens and $4.25 for each million output tokens. Tokens refer to small chunks of data that the AI processes. “Meta may finally have a much clearer monetization bridge from AI models to paid developer tools,” Shay Boloor, chief market strategist at Futurum Equities, said to Reuters. Reuters
The talk on Wall Street has moved past whether Meta can fund the buildout. Bank of America NYSE:BAC analyst Justin Post said investors had valued Meta at about $4 billion per gigawatt. That compares to $59 billion for Amazon.com, Inc. NASDAQ:AMZN and $110 billion for Alphabet Inc. NASDAQ:GOOGL. Post’s own figure is $12 billion per gigawatt for Meta’s capacity. The comps aren’t perfect—Amazon and Alphabet already run big cloud units for outside clients. Meta’s plans are still being built out.
| BofA capacity comparison | Estimated value per gigawatt |
|---|---|
| Meta, using market pricing | $4 billion |
| Meta, as BofA sees it | $12 billion |
| Amazon | $59 billion |
| Alphabet | $110 billion |
Gil Luria, analyst at D.A. Davidson, said Meta hasn’t gotten full credit for AI-powered ad growth since spending is climbing even more quickly. “If Meta slows down capex and starts monetizing it, we see significant upside to revenue and cash flow,” he said. Kiplinger
Meta’s ad business kept its momentum. Revenue for the first quarter jumped 33% to $56.31 billion, with operating margin steady at 41%. Free cash flow hit $12.39 billion, while capex rose to $19.84 billion for the quarter. Meta guided to second-quarter revenue between $58 billion and $61 billion.
But the re-rating depends on cloud revenue and chip savings Meta hasn’t spelled out. On Friday, Meta pulled its new Muse Image feature after backlash over using public Instagram accounts. EU regulators also said Facebook and Instagram likely broke the Digital Services Act, which regulates platform safety, flagging issues like autoplay and infinite scroll. Meta pushed back on the EU findings, but a negative final ruling could mean design changes and a fine of up to 6% of global annual turnover. For investors, the bigger concern would be less engagement or fewer ads.
Meta still hasn’t listed a Q2 earnings date on its investor-events page. The June U.S. consumer-price index lands Tuesday at 8:30 a.m. ET, with producer prices coming Wednesday. If inflation runs hot, bond yields might rise and pressure valuations. Any news on cloud customers, developers, or Iris chip numbers would give a test to last week’s $221 billion move.
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