Meta launches a stock-sale plan of up to $95bn to fund its AI build-out
Filings show $25.0bn of stock and $12.5bn of convertible preferred priced at once; the other $60bn is a planned programme not expected before 2027. Nvidia and AMD pledged $3bn and $1bn.
- Money & business
- Compute & infrastructure
- Notable
Meta announced on 26 October a financing plan to fund what it called continued investment in AI infrastructure and personal superintelligence. In its launch announcement, filed with the SEC, the plan had two parts: about $35bn of underwritten offerings, split between roughly $22.5bn of Class A common stock and $12.5bn of mandatory convertible preferred stock, and a planned at-the-market (ATM) programme of about $60bn. Press coverage, including CNBC, headlined the $95bn total.
The two parts are not equally firm. Meta said it had entered no agreement for the ATM programme, that its timing and terms were undetermined, and that it was not expected to begin before the first quarter of 2027, after the non-voting Class C stock starts trading. A definitive information statement filed on 2 November recorded written consent to that recapitalisation from Chan Zuckerberg entities holding about 56.1% of the voting power.
The pricing term sheet shows the common-stock leg upsized to $25.0bn: 40 million shares at $625.00, sold through forward-sale agreements with Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. Meta does not receive cash until the forwards settle, which it expects by 19 November 2027; it estimated net proceeds of about $24.9bn. The preferred leg was 250 million depositary shares at $50.00 each ($12.5bn) carrying a 6.50% dividend, and closed on 29 October. Filings give general corporate purposes as the use of proceeds. CNBC reported Meta’s shares fell 1.6% in morning trading.
The filings said Nvidia, AMD and Broadcom had indicated non-binding interest in buying up to $5.0bn of the Class A shares between them. Nvidia then said it would invest $3bn in the offering alongside an expanded deployment of its Vera Rubin and Vera CPU hardware for Muse, and AMD said the next day that it would invest $1bn, adding that its Helios rack systems were installed and being tested at Meta and that Meta would deploy a custom Instinct GPU. Neither release gave closing terms. Both releases were framed around Meta’s Muse agent. In each case a chip supplier was buying equity in a customer that is also buying its hardware.
It followed a quarter in which Meta’s free cash flow was negative, and came in the same fortnight as Oracle’s capital-raising limits and the big-tech earnings reports that put capital spending under investor scrutiny.