Meta Is Reportedly Weighing a Multibillion-Dollar Stock Sale to Fund Its AI Build-Out. Here's What It Could Mean for Shareholders.
Written by Daniel Sparks for The Motley Fool -> Meta has raised its 2026 capital-spending plan to as much as $145 billion. The company recently put its share buyback program on hold. Alphabet's roughly $85 billion equity raise just set a benchmark for investor appetite. Meta
Meta has raised its 2026 capital-spending plan to as much as $145 billion.
Alphabet's roughly $85 billion equity raise just set a benchmark for investor appetite.
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META) may soon pose a new question to its shareholders. Shares of the social media giant fell roughly 6% on Friday, June 5, after a Financial Times report said the company is weighing a sale of new stock -- potentially tens of billions of dollars' worth -- to help fund its surging investment in artificial intelligence (AI) .
Meta quickly called the report "pure speculation," noting that it hasn't hired banks and continues to explore flexible ways to raise money. So, this is a possibility, not a plan. But it's one worth taking seriously, arriving just days after rival Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) priced a roughly $85 billion equity raise to fund its own AI ambitions.
Will AI create the world's first trillionaire? Our team just released a report on the one little-known company, called an "Indispensable Monopoly" providing the critical technology Nvidia and Intel both need. Continue »
The question for shareholders is less about whether Meta can fund its plans than about how it chooses to -- and selling new shares would be a very different lever than the ones it has used so far.
Meta has ramped its spending sharply. Its 2025 capital expenditures , including finance leases, came to about $72 billion. Then, alongside its first-quarter results in late April, management raised its 2026 spending guidance to a range of $125 billion to $145 billion, up from a prior range of $115 billion to $135 billion. The midpoint would be roughly double what the company spent last year.
And Meta is not alone: Combined 2026 spending by Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft , and Amazon is expected to top $720 billion.
