New York, Jan 12, 2026, 4:22 PM ET — After-hours
Shares of Meta Platforms dropped 1.7% to $641.92 in after-hours Monday following CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement of a new “Meta Compute” initiative. He outlined plans to expand the company’s AI infrastructure to “tens of gigawatts” within this decade and eventually reach “hundreds of gigawatts or more.” Reuters
This move marks the next stage in Meta’s spending spree. A gigawatt measures power, with data centers at that scale pulling electricity comparable to small cities. Building and operating them comes with hefty costs.
This comes as investors push to see how far Meta will go balancing ambition with expenses, particularly as it races to stay competitive in AI while maintaining its core advertising business.
The New York Times reported that Meta is set to slash about 10% of its Reality Labs workforce, the division behind its metaverse projects and products like Quest headsets and Ray-Ban smart glasses. Reality Labs employs around 15,000 people, and the layoffs could be announced as early as Tuesday, according to the report.
Reality Labs has proven an expensive gamble. Since 2020, the metaverse division has swallowed over $60 billion, Reuters reported, despite Meta highlighting initial progress with its smart glasses.
Zuckerberg said Meta Compute will be co-led by infrastructure chief Santosh Janardhan and Daniel Gross. The new unit, focused on capacity planning and partnerships, will coordinate closely with newly hired president and vice chairman Dina Powell McCormick. He also highlighted long-term power as a potential bottleneck, noting Meta’s 20-year deals to buy electricity from three Vistra nuclear plants and its investments in small modular reactor projects.
Meta’s move to appoint Powell McCormick, revealed Monday, intensifies its effort to bolster political and financial clout for its initiatives. She brings 16 years of experience from Goldman Sachs and held the role of deputy national security adviser under Donald Trump’s first term, Reuters reported.
Minutes after the announcement, Trump congratulated her on Truth Social. Meta declined to say if the hiring was meant to appeal to him, Reuters reported. Meanwhile, Tech Oversight Project executive director Sacha Haworth called on Senator David McCormick, her husband, to “recuse himself” from decisions involving Meta’s business. Reuters
Traders know the drill: Meta is pouring money into what Zuckerberg dubs “personal superintelligence” — AI designed to outsmart humans — even as it scrambles to slash expenses on projects outside its main focus.
The downside is obvious. Growing power demands could drive up lead times, complicate permitting, and trigger fresh concerns about water and land use. Meanwhile, any slip-ups in model accuracy might force Meta to cover costs for capacity it can’t turn into revenue fast enough.
U.S. equities outside a few individual stocks saw choppy trading Monday amid renewed debate over the Federal Reserve’s independence and where interest rates are headed. Investors shifted focus toward upcoming inflation data.
Investors are gearing up for a potential Reality Labs update as early as Tuesday, with the U.S. consumer price index for December set to drop at 8:30 a.m. ET on Jan. 13. That number could reshape rate expectations and, in turn, impact megacap tech valuations.
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