{"id":566374,"date":"2026-07-30T05:29:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T05:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/566374\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T05:29:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T05:29:15","slug":"zuckerbergs-ai-bet-gets-expensive-metas-free-cash-flow-plunges-91-in-q2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/566374\/","title":{"rendered":"Zuckerberg\u2019s AI bet gets expensive: Meta\u2019s free cash flow plunges 91% in Q2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Meta Platforms<\/a>, opens new tab reported a 91% drop in second-quarter free cash flow \u200bon Wednesday, underscoring the financial strain of the social media giant’s costly AI buildout amid an uncertain payoff.The Facebook and Instagram parent company<\/a> reported free cash flow of $784 million \u200cin the second quarter ended June 30, down from $8.55 billion a year earlier, sending its shares down 10% in extended trading.\"META<\/a>\"META<\/p>\n

Meta Platforms, opens new tab reported a 91% drop in second-quarter free cash flow <\/p>\n

(Photo: Skorzewiak \/ Shutterstock)<\/p>\n

Meta’s cash flow wipeout echoed Alphabet’s, which last week reported its first-ever cash-flow-negative quarter, stunning even the most bullish of Wall Street investors who sold off the Google owner’s stock.<\/p>\n

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on an earnings call: “We expect that a significant portion of our compute is going to go towards training our models, growing our core business and delivering personal agents and new \u200bproducts, but we also expect to grow a large business serving large customers as well.”<\/p>\n

Facing repeated questions from analysts about the company’s AI strategy and how he planned to capitalize on the \u200benormous sums Meta is investing in the technology, Zuckerberg said the spending reflected its bet that personal AI agents would become a huge consumer business.<\/p>\n

He argued \u2060the company was uniquely positioned to commercialize the technology at scale despite the near-term costs.<\/p>\n

Meta’s free cash flow was the lowest since late 2022, when the company was facing similar investor scrutiny over spending on its \u200bambitious metaverse bet. Its Reality Labs division has posted more than $80 billion in operating losses.<\/p>\n

Microsoft reported<\/a> a 23% drop in free cash flow in the June quarter from a year earlier, but any concerns about its \u200bpace of spending were alleviated by surging growth in its high-margin cloud business. The software giant’s shares rose 4.4% in aftermarket trading on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Feverish speeding<\/p>\n

The company reported second-quarter earnings per share of $6.18, missing analysts’ average estimate of $7.22, according to data compiled by LSEG.<\/p>\n

\u201cMeta’s AI spend was easier to celebrate when margins were expanding. It’s harder to celebrate now that the \u200bcosts are showing up in the numbers,” said Mike Proulx, a senior executive at research firm Forrester. “Meta isn’t spending billions on AI infrastructure just to make Facebook and Instagram better. The company believes AI can \u200bcreate entirely new businesses.”<\/p>\n

\"\u05de\u05e0\u05db"\u05dc<\/a>\"\u05de\u05e0\u05db"\u05dc<\/p>\n

‘Meta’s AI spend was easier to celebrate when margins were expanding. It’s harder to celebrate now that the \u200bcosts are showing up in the numbers’ <\/p>\n

(Photo: Reuters)<\/p>\n

Meta expects to spend as much as $145 billion on AI infrastructure this year, about double last year’s investment, and a significant portion of Big Tech’s more than $700 billion projected outlay on the technology in 2026.<\/p>\n

Reuters reported this \u200cmonth that Meta plans \u2060to double overall computing power to 7 gigawatts this year and to double it again, to 14 gigawatts, next year. It currently has 32 data centers across the globe in operation or under construction.<\/p>\n

The company raised the lower end of its capital expenditure outlook on Wednesday. It now expects 2026 capital expenditure to be between $130 billion and $145 billion, compared with its prior forecast of $125 billion to $145 billion. At the beginning of the year it had forecast spending between $115 billion and $135 billion.<\/p>\n

One bright spot in the results was Meta’s revenue, which jumped 28% to $60.8 billion in the second quarter, the quickest pace of growth since the fourth quarter of 2021, \u200bbarring the first quarter of 2026. Usage of Meta’s \u200bapps rebounded after a quarterly dip in April. \u2060The company reported 3.6 billion daily active people, a 3% rise year-over-year.<\/p>\n

Luke Stillman, a managing director at research firm Madison and Wall, said: “Meta’s underlying ad business that’s financing everything though is still performing well and is our main focus.”<\/p>\n

Meta’s legal troubles<\/p>\n

While investors are scrutinizing Meta’s AI spending, it faces legal risks related to its \u200bcore business. The company said in a court filing this month that four states were seeking $1.4 trillion in penalties over accusations it designed its Facebook and \u200bInstagram platforms to addict young \u2060users<\/a> and misled the public about their safety.\"\u05d0\u05d9\u05e0\u05e1\u05d8\u05d2\u05e8\u05dd\"<\/a>\"\u05d0\u05d9\u05e0\u05e1\u05d8\u05d2\u05e8\u05dd\"<\/p>\n

Facebook and \u200bInstagram platforms to addict young \u2060users and misled the public about their safety <\/p>\n

(Photo: shutterstock)<\/p>\n

Meta warned in April that legal and regulatory blowback in the European Union and the U.S. over youth social media issues “could significantly impact” its business and financial results.<\/p>\n

The company said on Wednesday that it continued to see this scrutiny.<\/p>\n

It also had severance expenses associated with a sweeping restructuring it has been carrying out to reorient its inner workings around AI. In May, it laid off about 10% of its workforce, \u2060or around 8,000 \u200bemployees, as part of that overhaul.<\/p>\n

On the earnings call, Meta Chief Financial Officer Susan Li said second-quarter operating income would have \u200bincreased 9% year over year without the company’s legal charges and severance expenses. Operating income actually fell 8%.<\/p>\n

“We continue to see scrutiny on youth-related issues in several markets and have a number of youth-related trials scheduled for this year in the U.S., which may ultimately \u200bresult in a material loss,” she said in the company’s earnings statement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Meta Platforms, opens new tab reported a 91% drop in second-quarter free cash flow \u200bon Wednesday, underscoring the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":566375,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[345,343,344,85,46,125],"class_list":["post-566374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=566374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566374\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/566375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=566374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=566374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=566374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}