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Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG | GOOG Price Prediction, NASDAQ:GOOGL) recently raised $85 billion with Berkshire Hathaway’s stamp of approval, and Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) seems to be heading in the same direction. The difference is that Google dominates when it comes to AI image and video generation, with its text-based model also high up in the benchmarks. On the other hand, Zuckerberg’s last capex bump of up to $145 billion was met with a selloff.
So, how is Mark Zuckerberg going to justify a dilution?
Fortunately for him, he may not even have to. Wall Street can complain, and you may see a slight reaction, but META stock is already trading at 18 times forward earnings. It’s tough to see it going lower once bulls argue that the freshly raised capital will accelerate growth.
Will META really go for a stock sale?
On June 5, 2026, the Financial Times reported that Meta is exploring raising “tens of billions of dollars” through a primary equity offering (issuing new stock).
Meta has not hired banks yet and officially called the report “pure speculation.” However, they left the door wide open with a carefully worded caveat: “We’ve been clear that huge opportunities lie ahead in AI, and we’ll continue focusing on raising capital in the most flexible ways to support that.”
Considering the bill is climbing, I believe a stock sale is coming eventually.
First things first, you should take a look at Meta’s balance sheet. Net cash has plunged, with Meta having more debt than cash.
Meta had $54.85 billion in cash with $10.32 billion of debt in 2019.
Secondly, Zuckerberg already warned about why costs were going up. Meta is not blindly building out as many data centers as it can. What is happening instead is that component costs are going up, and this is forcing hyperscalers to spend more on each data center. These costs are outstripping initial budgets significantly.
Meta could continue taking on more debt or do an at-the-market offering. The latter is much healthier long-term and makes good use of the ongoing AI rally.
Will all this spending ever pay off for Meta Platforms?
Meta does not have a serious answer to Google or Anthropic’s state-of-the-art AI models. However, this does not mean it has nothing to show for all this AI spending. The company has a massive reach through its “Family of Apps” platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and more. It is already seeing billions interact with its AI models through these platforms.
The true aim of this AI spending isn’t even that.
Meta is using these AI models to serve targeted ads to users on platforms like Instagram and Facebook. An Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) earnings call claimed a “3.5x” increase, though Meta officially confirmed a 3.5% lift in ad clicks on Facebook and more than a 1% gain in conversions on Instagram. At Meta’s scale, this is still billions of dollars, and you now have a real payback period for all the AI spending, even though it could take decades for AI’s impact on ads to pay for all the costs.
What should you do ahead of such a sale?
The market is forward-looking, so I would assume that a good deal of any potential dilution has already been priced in. Moreover, Alphabet has proved the market’s appetite for more shares by successfully pulling off its equity raise. In fact, Alphabet’s sale was heavily oversubscribed.
Facebook is no Google, but if Meta formally issues stock, Wall Street’s heavyweights might eagerly scoop it up. It’s easy money that Zuckerberg is unlikely to say no to as the AI bill keeps rising.
Regardless, you should keep in mind that Meta’s market cap is $1.48 trillion, whereas Alphabet’s market cap is $4.42 trillion. Meta’s capex is ~75% of Alphabet’s despite that discrepancy. It needs to dilute far more to raise what Alphabet raised or do a smaller offering.
Whether or not you should buy META stock here rests entirely upon what you think about the broader stock market. I don’t expect any potential stock offering news to have an impact of over a ±5% swing.
