Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META) is trading slightly lower in Thursday’s premarket session as investors digest a packed batch of AI, metaverse and regulatory headlines, along with fresh Wall Street price targets and long‑term forecasts.
As of about 6:30 a.m. EST on December 11, Meta stock is changing hands around $643.55 in premarket trading, roughly 1% below Wednesday’s close of $650.13. [1] That leaves the shares nearly 19% below their 52‑week high around $796, even after a huge run over the past two years. [2]
Below is a breakdown of what’s moving Meta stock today and how analysts and investors are framing the outlook.
Meta Stock Premarket on December 11, 2025
- Previous close (Dec 10, 2025): $650.13, down 1.04% on the day. [3]
- Premarket (around 5:49–6:30 a.m. EST): Quotes cluster in the low–mid $640s, with Public.com showing $643.55, down $6.58 (-1.01%) versus yesterday’s close. [4]
- Recent trend: Over the last five sessions, Meta has drifted lower from the upper‑$670s to the mid‑$640s, giving back part of the sharp rally that followed October’s earnings and later metaverse spending headlines. [5]
Premarket volume remains modest compared with regular hours, so price swings can look outsized. But the early read is clear: investors are cautious but not panicking as they weigh:
- A pivot in AI strategy toward a more closed, revenue‑generating model. [6]
- Fresh headlines on deep cuts to the metaverse/Reality Labs budget after tens of billions in losses. [7]
- A new $900 price target and still‑bullish Street consensus. [8]
- Growing regulatory scrutiny of AI chatbots in the U.S. [9]
Wall Street Check‑In: $900 Target, “Moderate Buy” Consensus
Citizens reiterates $900 on Instagram strength
Early this morning, Citizens reiterated its $900 price target and Market Outperform rating on Meta, pointing to surging Instagram engagement:
- Instagram time spent in the U.S. is growing about 20% year over year, with global time spent also up more than 20% in both October and November, according to data the firm cited. [10]
- Citizens argues that Meta’s improved recommendation algorithms are driving more relevant content and helping sustain strong ad monetization on Instagram.
At Wednesday’s close near $650, the $900 target implies roughly 38% upside over the next 12 months, underscoring that at least some analysts still see Meta as a high‑growth AI and advertising play rather than a mature mega‑cap with limited runway. [11]
Citizens also notes:
- Meta’s financial health is “great” by InvestingPro’s metrics.
- The company remains a top player in Interactive Media & Services, supported by massive scale across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger. [12]
MarketBeat: Moderate Buy with high‑$800s Street targets
A separate MarketBeat summary published today reinforces the bullish tilt:
- Consensus rating: Moderate Buy
- Breakdown: 4 analysts rate Meta Strong Buy, 39 Buy, and 7 Hold. [13]
- Average 12‑month price target: about $821.63, implying mid‑20s percentage upside from the low‑$650s. [14]
MarketBeat also highlights that Meta:
- Trades around 28–29x earnings with an estimated 2025 EPS of 26.7, and
- Offers a quarterly dividend of $0.525 per share (about $2.10 annualized, ~0.3% yield). [15]
On the institutional side, a new note today shows SCS Capital Management boosted its Meta stake by 56.3% to 44,291 shares (about $32.7 million), while overall institutional ownership stands near 80%. [16]
The Big Story: Meta’s AI Pivot to “Avocado” and Away from Open Source
The most important narrative for Meta stock this week is the strategic shift in AI.
From open Llama to closed “Avocado”
Reporting from Bloomberg, summarized by Advisor Perspectives and Investing.com, describes Meta:
- Building a new flagship AI model codenamed “Avocado”, expected to debut next spring.
- Considering launching it as a closed model, where Meta tightly controls access and can sell usage to enterprises and developers—much closer to OpenAI and Google’s approach than Meta’s historic open‑source stance. [17]
- Training Avocado using third‑party models, including Google’s Gemma, OpenAI’s “gpt‑oss” and Alibaba’s Qwen, highlighting a more pragmatic, mixed‑source strategy. [18]
This comes after:
- Llama 4, an open‑source model released earlier this year, reportedly disappointed Zuckerberg and Silicon Valley, prompting a strategy reset. [19]
- Meta sidelined some of the team behind Llama 4 and poured money into a new group, TBD Lab (also referred to as Superintelligence Labs), that works physically close to Zuckerberg’s desk at headquarters. [20]
New AI leadership, big spending and internal tensions
The AI pivot is also reshaping Meta’s org chart and cost structure:
- Alexandr Wang, the 28‑year‑old founder of Scale AI, is now Chief AI Officer, brought in via a $14.3 billion strategic deal with his startup. He is widely seen as an advocate for closed models and more aggressive commercialization. [21]
- Reports suggest friction inside Meta: Wang has reportedly chafed at Zuckerberg’s hands‑on, sometimes micromanaging style, and longtime AI research legend Yann LeCun recently left after resource disputes and a deemphasis of open‑source research. [22]
According to Investing.com, Meta stock dropped about 1–1.2% on Wednesday after the Bloomberg report detailing this shift toward a closed, monetizable AI model. [23] That decline is part of the modest slide investors see reflected in this morning’s premarket prices.
Why this matters for the stock
For investors, the AI pivot raises a set of uncomfortable but important questions:
- Will closing the model alienate developers who embraced Llama and open AI tools?
- Can Meta successfully monetize Avocado to justify the massive AI capital expenditures?
- Does the new strategy reduce antitrust and regulatory exposure—or increase it by making Meta look more like its AI rivals?
So far, the market reaction has been cautious rather than dramatic: a drift lower rather than a crash. But how Avocado performs next year will be central to whether Meta’s stock rerates higher or stalls.
Metaverse Hangover: $70 Billion in Losses, 30% Budget Cut for Reality Labs
Another major theme hanging over Meta is the costly metaverse experiment.
A report out of Indonesia’s IDNFinancials, citing Bloomberg and other sources, lays out the scale:
- Over the past four years, Reality Labs (RL)—the unit behind VR headsets, Horizon Worlds, Ray‑Ban smart glasses and AR efforts—has generated more than $70 billion in cumulative losses. [24]
- As part of 2026 financial planning, Meta is preparing to cut the Reality Labs budget by up to 30%, with potential job cuts and restructuring inside the VR division. [25]
- Meta’s shares jumped about 4% when the budget‑cut plans first circulated, as investors welcomed signs of discipline. [26]
Analysts quoted in that report call the move “sensible, though late,” arguing that RL’s spending wasn’t aligned with realistic revenue prospects and that the metaverse’s value proposition still isn’t clear for mainstream users. [27]
At the same time, Meta is not cutting spending overall—it’s largely reallocating toward AI:
- The company has budgeted up to $72 billion in capital expenditure this year, much of it tied to AI datacenters and infrastructure. [28]
- Meta has told policymakers and the press it plans to invest roughly $600 billion in U.S. infrastructure and jobs over the next three years, again heavily AI‑driven. [29]
That combination—slashing metaverse spend while supercharging AI—is key to the bull case (more discipline, more high‑ROI projects) and the bear case (massive, risky AI capex with uncertain returns).
Hardware and VR: Price Hikes and Privacy Risks
Meta’s hardware business is also in the headlines:
- A Business Insider story based on an internal memo reports that Meta plans to raise prices on parts of its virtual and mixed‑reality lineup, including some Ray‑Ban smart glasses and Quest devices, even as it delays or retools future hardware projects. [30]
- The memo reportedly underscores that Reality Labs remains deeply unprofitable, reinforcing why management is pursuing budget cuts and focusing on AI‑related wearables rather than pure metaverse bets. [31]
Meanwhile, Reuters reports strong initial traction for Ray‑Ban Meta smart glasses, but flags two big overhangs:
- Privacy concerns around always‑on cameras and microphones.
- Intensifying competition from Snap, Apple and others in mixed‑reality and camera‑equipped wearables. [32]
For shareholders, the message is that hardware remains a strategic but risky side bet—valuable if it helps anchor AI in real‑world devices, but unlikely to become a large, stand‑alone profit engine anytime soon.
Regulatory Clouds: US Attorneys General Warn on AI “Delusional” Outputs
AI isn’t just a capital‑intensive bet; it’s a regulatory minefield.
On December 10, dozens of U.S. state attorneys general sent a letter to Microsoft, Meta, Google, Apple and others, warning that their AI chatbots’ “delusional outputs”—false or hallucinated responses—could violate state laws and pose mental‑health risks to users. [33]
- The AGs cited cases where chatbots appeared to encourage or echo users’ delusions, including in discussions about self‑harm.
- They urged companies to allow independent audits of AI systems and called for regulators to review these tools more aggressively. [34]
Meta did not immediately comment to Reuters on the letter. For Meta investors, this underscores:
- Legal and reputational risk around AI products integrated into Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
- The potential for future compliance costs or product redesigns that could slow rollout of new AI features.
Fundamentals Snapshot: Big Revenue, Tax Noise and Heavy R&D
Underneath the headlines, Meta’s fundamental picture remains mixed but broadly strong.
Recent earnings
According to MarketBeat and 24/7 Wall St:
- In Q3 2025, Meta’s revenue rose 26.2% year over year to $51.24 billion, beating expectations. [35]
- The Family of Apps (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger) contributed almost all of this—over $50 billion in revenue—highlighting how dependent Meta still is on ad‑supported social platforms. [36]
- Meta reported EPS of $7.25 vs. $6.74 expected, and a net margin near 31% on a trailing basis. [37]
However, GAAP net income fell 82.7% year over year to $2.71 billion, largely because the provision for income taxes surged from roughly $2.1 billion to nearly $19.0 billion. [38] Analysts see this mostly as a one‑off tax issue, not a sign that the core business is collapsing, but it does make headline earnings look ugly.
R&D and AI spending
24/7 Wall St. notes that between Q3 2024 and Q3 2025:
- R&D expenses jumped 35.5%, from about $11.2 billion to $15.1 billion, reflecting Meta’s AI push. [39]
This is where the market is split:
- Bulls argue that Meta is front‑loading AI infrastructure investment, similar to early hyperscaler cloud build‑outs, with long payoffs in advertising relevance, AI assistants and enterprise services. [40]
- Bears worry Meta is repeating the metaverse pattern: staggering spending ahead of clear monetization, risking another multi‑year drag on profits. [41]
Long‑Term Meta Stock Forecasts: 2025–2030 Scenarios
A fresh 24/7 Wall St. deep‑dive published December 10 lays out detailed forecasts for Meta through 2030: [42]
Street vs. 24/7 targets
- Street median 1‑year target: $832.06, implying about 26–27% upside from recent levels.
- 24/7’s own 2025 target: $875.46, or about 33% upside, based on continued ad strength and disciplined cost control as AI spend ramps.
Their 2025–2030 price path
24/7’s model projects Meta’s share price could reach $1,216.82 by 2030, about 85% above today’s price. Key milestones in their scenario: [43]
- 2026 target: $935.29
- 2027 target: $1,208.27 (roughly 84% upside from current levels)
- 2028 target: $1,525.91
- 2029 target: $1,049.40 (some pullback after a big run)
- 2030 target: $1,216.82
These forecasts assume:
- Revenue climbs from about $183 billion in 2025 to nearly $275 billion in 2030,
- Net income grows from ~$62 billion to ~ $91 billion by decade’s end, even after a slight dip from a peak above $97 billion. [44]
Will Meta really hit $1,000 by 2027?
Another 24/7 Wall St. article published the same day takes a more cautious tone: “Will Meta Platforms (META) Stock Hit $1,000 in 2027?” [45]
Key points from that piece:
- Meta’s revenue is booming, but its Q3 2025 net income plunge—driven by taxes—shows how volatile bottom‑line metrics can be. [46]
- The company’s future is highly dependent on ad revenue and whether it can successfully expand into AI hardware and services, especially AI glasses. [47]
- The authors conclude it is “possible but unlikely” that Meta will reach $1,000 by 2027, arguing that investors should rein in their optimism until there is clearer proof that the AI spending spree is paying off. [48]
Together, these forecasts sketch a wide cone of outcomes: anything from a stalled stock to a near‑doubling over five years, depending on execution.
What Today’s Premarket Move Is Really Saying
Putting everything together, Thursday’s mild premarket dip looks less like a dramatic turn and more like a market trying to price a complicated story:
- Core business strong
- Ads across Facebook and Instagram remain robust.
- Instagram engagement is accelerating, and Reels and AI‑driven recommendations are still tailwinds. [49]
- AI pivot = both opportunity and risk
- The Avocado project and a more closed‑source AI strategy could finally give Meta a direct revenue stream from models, not just indirect ad uplift. [50]
- But it also risks alienating developers, increasing regulatory scrutiny and repeating the heavy‑capex / uncertain‑payoff pattern investors remember from the metaverse.
- Metaverse hangover is real, but discipline is improving
- Reality Labs’ $70+ billion in cumulative losses and a planned 30% budget cut signal the end of blank‑check metaverse spending. [51]
- Investors appear to welcome a shift toward more measurable AI and app‑centric returns.
- Regulatory front getting louder
- The attorneys general letter about “delusional” chatbot outputs underlines that AI products could attract the same kind of sustained legal battles social media has faced. [52]
- Valuation is no longer dirt cheap
- At mid‑$600s, Meta trades on a premium multiple to the broader market, justified only if AI investments eventually deliver supercharged earnings growth. [53]
Key Takeaways for Investors Watching Meta Stock Today
- Short term (today / this week):
Expect trading to be dominated by AI‑headline digestion, further commentary on the Avocado pivot, and broader market moves after the latest Fed decision and macro data. Modest negative premarket action suggests skeptical but not fearful sentiment. - Medium term (2026):
The crucial question is whether Avocado and Meta’s wider AI tools translate into new, high‑margin revenue streams (for example, enterprise APIs, AI agents, and advertising improvements) or simply remain a massive cost center. - Long term (2027–2030):
Forecasts range from sub‑$1,000 “cautious optimism” scenarios to $1,200+ bull cases, with outcomes hinged on:- AI monetization,
- Continued resilience of the Family of Apps ad engine, and
- How effectively Meta navigates regulatory and political pressure around AI and social platforms. [54]
Important note:
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Premarket prices and news flow move quickly; always check up‑to‑date quotes and consider consulting a qualified financial professional before making investment decisions.
References
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