Meta Shares Drop After $31 Billion AI Spending Spree

Shares of Meta Platforms fell nearly 10% during extended trading on July 30, 2026, causing Mark Zuckerberg to lose approximately $18.2 billion in personal net worth. The market reaction followed the company's Q2 2026 earnings release, which revealed a 91% collapse in free cash flow to $784 million.

This financial decline resulted from a $31.08 billion quarterly capital expenditure on AI server infrastructure and compute hubs. Meta subsequently raised its full-year 2026 capital expenditure forecast to between $130 billion and $145 billion, a range that exceeds the Wall Street consensus estimate of $115 billion.

Zuckerberg defended the aggressive spending, stating that the compute capacity is necessary to power AI agents and train Llama 5. He argued that under-investing in AI infrastructure poses a far greater existential threat to the company than over-investing.