Meta Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg is pictured at the U.S. Capitol after a meeting in the office of Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R.S.D., on March 26, 2026.
Tom Williams | CQ-Roll Call Inc. | Getty Images
meta Shares fell more than 5% on Friday after the Financial Times reported that the company could raise tens of billions of dollars in a stock offering to fund investments in artificial intelligence.
The FT reports that the social media company is considering a potential stake sale following its acquisition by a rival company. alphabet announced plans this week to raise $85 billion through a stock sale, up from $80 billion. Alphabet has underperformed over the past year, but its stock has fallen for the fourth straight week as investors worry about excessive AI spending.
Meta does not employ banks and may not issue new shares, the FT noted.
A Mehta spokesperson called the report “pure speculation.”
“It’s clear that there is a huge opportunity in AI, and we remain focused on finding the most flexible ways to raise capital to support it,” a spokesperson said in an email.
Like other tech giants, Meta and Alphabet are spending record amounts on capital expenditures as they rush to build out AI infrastructure to meet insatiable demand.
In April, Meta raised its 2026 capital spending outlook to up to $145 billion from its previous forecast of up to $135 billion. In the same month, Alphabet announced it was raising the cap on its capital spending forecast by $5 billion to $190 billion.
Wall Street has treated the two companies very differently over the past year, largely because Alphabet thrives on its cloud business, which helps justify big spending. Alphabet’s stock price has risen more than 115% over the past 12 months, making it the top among mega-cap stocks in the industry, while Meta’s stock price has fallen 13%, making it the worst performer in the group.
clock: Mark Mahaney of Evercore: Meta is one of my favorite stocks in the large-cap internet space.
