Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta Platforms Inc., during the Meta Connect event in Menlo Park, California, United States, Wednesday, September 17, 2025.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
MetaplatformsThe stock suffered its biggest one-day loss since October 2022 as skepticism about the results of its aggressive AI spending plans overshadowed the strong results.
Shares fell more than 11%.
The social media giant has raised its capital spending forecast for 2025 as it battles rivals to develop advanced AI tools. Meta now expects investments to be between $70 billion and $72 billion, compared to earlier forecasts of $66 billion to $72 billion.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg defended the company’s ambitious spending plans during the earnings conference call Wednesday.
“It’s quite early, but I think we’re seeing results in the core business,” he said. “That gives us a lot of confidence that we should be investing a lot more, and we want to make sure we’re not underinvesting.”
Zuckerberg said the company is “aggressively” and preemptively building its capabilities to prepare for the arrival of superintelligence, where Meta will be “ideally positioned for a generational paradigm shift in many big opportunities.”
Like its peers, Meta has shelled out billions to bolster its AI offerings in an increasingly competitive landscape – and it’s not alone. Wednesday, Alphabet increased its investment forecast from $91 billion to $93 billion, and Microsoft said it expects increased spending growth this fiscal year.
Earlier this year, Meta invested $14.3 billion in AI startup Scale AI and brought in its CEO, Alexandr Wang, to lead its AI initiative called Superintelligence Labs with former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman.
Meta also signed several new cloud agreements to develop AI infrastructure.
For the third quarter, Meta reported adjusted earnings of $7.25 per share on revenue of $51.24 billion and beat Wall Street estimates.
Revenue rose 26% from last year and the company reported a $15.93 billion tax liability following the implementation of President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
— CNBC’s Jonathan Vanian contributed reporting
WATCH: Meta announces higher results in the third quarter, the company takes a one-time tax charge
