Meta said it will issue a new class of shares to fund its artificial intelligence initiatives. The company disclosed the plan in its third-quarter earnings report released Wednesday. The non-voting stock will also go toward potential acquisitions and employee compensation, with trading set to begin in 2027.
In its press release, Meta said the investment needed to compete, sustain growth, expand infrastructure and pursue new strategic initiatives amid the AI transformation in the industry is significant. On the earnings call, Meta chief financial officer Susan Li said the new share class would broaden the company's funding tools and give it flexibility to invest behind the momentum it is seeing across every part of its business, which it attributes to AI.
Meta has spent billions of dollars in the AI race. It is building and promoting large data centers, hiring top talent away from companies such as OpenAI, and developing AI models meant to rival those of other tech giants. The company now expects capital expenditures of between $135 billion and $145 billion this year, up from its previous estimate of $130 billion to $145 billion.
The share plan follows a busy stretch for Meta on the AI product side. It launched its AI agent, Muse, in September. Like other AI agents, Muse can clear out an email inbox, book restaurant reservations and plan trips.
The Muse app reached the top of the app stores soon after its rollout and hit 10 million downloads in the US this week. Meta also rolled out its Muse Wonder model this week.
Muse's launch has come with problems. Amid concerns about user privacy, a tech YouTuber reported that the agent gave out his address to a stranger on Facebook Marketplace. Meta has also paused Muse's conversation-sharing feature after researchers found chats publicly available on the web.
The share issuance is aimed at a US market, where Meta's stock trades and where Muse has drawn its 10 million downloads.
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