Meta’s Forecast Implies a $79 Billion-Plus Second Half

MENLO PARK, Calif., Oct. 19 — MetaMeta reports third-quarter results after the market closes on Wednesday, before Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon report next week, and after the Nasdaq’s worst week since June. Its own forecast sets the bar.

Meta’s capital spending came to $50.92 billion in the first half of 2026.The MeasureMeta counts purchases of property and equipment plus principal payments on finance leases. In the first half those came to $49.11 billion and $1.81 billion. To land within the $130 billion to $145 billion it expects for the year, it must spend $79 billion to $94 billion in the second half, more than the $72.22 billion it spent in all of 2025.

That is about $40 billion to $47 billion a quarter, against $31.08 billion in the second quarter, when Meta’s free cash flow was $784 million. Meta has used bonds to help pay for the build-out, and neither it nor Alphabet, Amazon or Oracle has sold any in a registered offering since Sept. 9. Muse, the AI agent Meta released in September, is meanwhile being turned away by Amazon, JPMorgan Chase and Charles Schwab.

Meta’s shares closed Friday at $709.33, down 3.7 percent on the day and 1.3 percent on the week.METANasdaq614.99▼9.53−1.5%Meta Platforms · Friday’s session

The range has moved only one way this year. In January Meta forecast $115 billion to $135 billion. In April it raised that to $125 billion to $145 billion, citing “higher component pricing this year and, to a lesser extent, additional data center costs to support future year capacity.” In July it lifted the bottom to $130 billion. At the low end, 2026 spending would be 80 percent above 2025’s; at the top, about double.

The cash left over has thinned. Meta’s operations brought in $31.86 billion in the second quarter; it paid $30.12 billion for property and equipment and $962 million in finance-lease principal, leaving free cash flow of $784 million, against $8.55 billion a year earlier.Free Cash FlowMeta’s own measure: cash from operations, less purchases of property and equipment and principal payments on finance leases. For the first half it was $13.17 billion. It ended June with $90.26 billion in cash and marketable securities, and with $83.66 billion of long-term debt, up from $28.83 billion at the end of September 2025.

There is another cost in the forecast. Second-quarter expenses included $2.40 billion of charges related to legal proceedings, and the release warned that Meta had “a number of youth-related trials scheduled for this year in the U.S., which may ultimately result in a material loss.” Each of its three results releases this year has carried a version of that warning.

The Window

Meta’s last two bond sales each came the day after it reported results. It sold $30 billion of notes on Oct. 30, 2025, and $25 billion on April 30, when its notes due 2036 were priced to yield 5.286 percent. The April term sheet gave the notes’ ratings as Aa3 from Moody’s and AA- from S&P.

None of Meta, Alphabet, Amazon or Oracle has sold bonds in a registered offering since Amazon priced £4.25 billion of notes on Sept. 9, their filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission show. Alphabet’s last bond sale was on Aug. 6. Microsoft has filed for no bond sale in 2025 or 2026. Oracle sold $25 billion on Feb. 2 and had said it expected no more bonds this year.Oracle’s PlanAnnouncing its 2026 funding plan on Feb. 1, Oracle said it “does not expect to issue additional bonds during calendar year 2026 beyond this transaction.” Private placements and commercial paper would not necessarily appear in these filings.

The pause is not the year’s longest. None of the five sold registered bonds between March 11 and April 30, and it was Meta, the day after its first-quarter report, that ended that seven-week silence.

What has changed is the price of risk for weaker borrowers. Bonds that CoreWeave, which rents out AI computing power, sold in June were yielding 15 percent last week, Reuters reported. “CoreWeave is absolutely the canary in the coal mine,” Reuters quoted Max Frumes, global head of distressed and leveraged finance at 9fin, a credit-data company, as saying. If Meta returns after Wednesday, as it did after its October 2025 and April 2026 results, the yield it pays will show what lenders now charge it.

The Agent

Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s founder and chief executive, said in July that AI was “powering our next generation of products.” One of them is meeting closed doors. Since Sept. 20 Amazon has told Muse users that “continued access by an unauthorized AI agent violates Amazon’s Conditions of Use, to which our customers have agreed,” GeekWire reported, as cited by The Verge. A JPMorgan Chase spokesperson confirmed to CNBC that the bank blocks outside AI agents from performing tasks for customers, The Verge reported.

Charles Schwab’s chief executive, Rick Wurster, named Muse in an interview with Bloomberg: “We don’t want someone just giving their password to Muse, and letting Muse come in and take action on that client’s behalf,” he said, as quoted by The Verge.

“Turning away a personal agent means turning away the customer behind it,” Meta wrote in an Oct. 6 post for businesses, answering sites that block agents. It said it would “rather work with businesses to address the underlying concerns than see them lose that customer,” and previewed its work on “Personal Agent Protocol, an open standard.” Walmart, Gap, Sephora and Best Buy let Muse shop on their sites, The Verge reported. Wednesday’s will be Meta’s first earnings call since Muse’s release.

Turning away a personal agent means turning away the customer behind it.

The Week

Others go first. SpaceX posts its results after the close on Tuesday. In the second quarter its AI segment, which includes Grok, X and computing infrastructure, had $2.56 billion of revenue and an operating loss of $1.26 billion.SpaceX and xAISpaceX completed its acquisition of xAI, which owns X, on Feb. 2, its quarterly report says. Netflix also reports Tuesday. On Wednesday Tesla reports after the close, and Texas Instruments, Lam Research and IBM hold their calls that afternoon. Microsoft and Alphabet report on Oct. 28, the second day of the Federal Reserve’s meeting, and Amazon on Oct. 29.

For Meta, the figures to hear on Wednesday are third-quarter spending, against the $40 billion to $47 billion a quarter its forecast implies on average, and free cash flow, against $784 million.