META
Uncle Sam wants a peek
Meta’s latest headache is regulatory, not social. The Trump administration has been pressing the company to submit its AI models for voluntary government review, and Meta is the holdout among the big U.S. AI players. OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, xAI, and Microsoft have already signed on, so Meta is starting to look like the last kid at the group project who still hasn’t turned in their slides.
The capex monster in the room
But the bigger investor story may be the one hiding in plain sight: spending. Meta now plans to spend $135 billion this year, up from prior guidance of $115 billion and more than double last year’s $72 billion. That’s great if you’re excited about AI infrastructure, less great if you’re trying to explain why margins and valuation don’t get a clean, simple boost.
Why the market cares
The business is still growing, which is why this isn’t a total disaster movie. But when the company keeps cranking up capex and regulators start asking to inspect the AI engines, the market tends to get a little twitchy. You can almost hear investors whispering, “Cool plan, but when do we get the payoff?”
Big picture: Meta’s long-term AI ambitions are still intact, but the stock is stuck between a Washington headache and a spending spree.