Meta raised the bottom of its 2026 capital-expenditure forecast by $5 billion and disclosed plans for a new class of nonvoting shares designed to fund its AI buildout without diluting Mark Zuckerberg's voting control1,2.
The company now expects full-year capital spending between $135 billion and $145 billion, up from a prior range of $130 billion to $145 billion. The ceiling held; only the floor moved. The additional outlay is directed at AI infrastructure, including chips and data centers for training large models, as well as development of Muse, Meta's consumer AI agent.
The new nonvoting Class C shares carry an effective date of January 2027. Meta said the stock will not change Zuckerberg's voting control over the company. ANALYSIS The structure mirrors dual-class mechanisms used elsewhere in tech to raise equity capital while insulating founder governance from shareholder pressure.
The spending increase arrived alongside a strong earnings print. Third-quarter 2026 revenue reached $64.60 billion, topping the $63.37 billion Wall Street consensus. The Wall Street Journal characterized the quarter as record revenue of $64.2 billion. Meta also issued fourth-quarter revenue guidance above consensus estimates, citing encouraging early performance from Muse and the release of new models.
Meta framed the higher capex as a competitive necessity. The company faces pressure from OpenAI and Anthropic in the race to build and deploy large AI models.
The capex revision lands days after a separate Muse incident: Meta suspended the agent's conversation-sharing feature after security firm Claroc found more than 6,800 share links exposing user data on the open web[2]. ANALYSIS The juxtaposition of accelerated AI spending with an unresolved product-security episode underscores the operational complexity Meta faces as it scales Muse toward broader consumer use.
The nonvoting stock and revised spending floor take effect in January 2027 and the current fiscal year, respectively.