NEW YORK — Meta Platforms, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, announced on Monday, 26 October 2026, that it plans to raise up to $95 billion in its largest-ever equity fundraising, a record sum aimed at paying for its costly artificial intelligence expansion. The company launched public offerings of about $35 billion in common stock and convertible preferred stock, and filed for a separate at-the-market programme to sell non-voting shares worth as much as $60 billion, according to Reuters.
Illustration: Rows of glowing server racks inside a vast data centre.
What Happened
Meta launched the $35 billion portion of the fundraising on Monday, 26 October 2026, in the form of public offerings of common stock and convertible preferred stock, Reuters reported. Alongside it, the company filed for an at-the-market programme — a mechanism that lets a company sell shares gradually into the market over time rather than all at once — covering non-voting shares worth up to $60 billion. Combined, the two parts could raise as much as $95 billion, which Reuters described as Meta's largest-ever equity fundraising.
The money is earmarked for Meta's AI expansion: the data centres, computing hardware and energy capacity needed to train and run advanced AI models. Building that infrastructure has become one of the most capital-intensive races in corporate history, with the largest technology companies committing hundreds of billions of dollars to facilities that take years to build and equip. Meta had already unsettled investors earlier in October by sharply raising its AI spending plans, a move that briefly rattled markets — and Monday's announcement shows the company intends to fund the build-out substantially with new equity rather than debt alone.
Meta was not the only company moving on Monday. Anthropic, the AI lab behind the Claude chatbot, unveiled its prospectus for an initial public offering the same day, and SpaceX said an affiliate of investment firm Apollo Global Management would buy AI chips and server hardware and lease them to the company in a deal with total principal payments of about $40 billion, Reuters reported. The three announcements together made 26 October one of the biggest single days yet for AI financing — and a sign of how fiercely companies are now competing for investor capital.
Background
The AI infrastructure boom has a simple logic and a daunting price tag. Training a frontier AI model requires thousands of specialised chips running for months in warehouse-sized data centres, and serving those models to hundreds of millions of users requires still more capacity. The companies building this infrastructure argue that the spending is a once-in-a-generation investment: whoever owns the computing capacity will own the next era of software. Sceptics counter that the sums involved — and the speed at which they are growing — look like a bubble, and they point to the risk that the returns on AI investment arrive more slowly than the bills do.
That debate has whipsawed markets in recent weeks. Reuters' market coverage on Monday noted that tech and AI stocks fuelled a solid rebound on Wall Street that day, with the Nasdaq rising 0.8 percent and the S&P 500 gaining 0.7 percent, even as investors questioned whether aggressive capital spending reflects durable business needs. "Investors need confidence that aggressive capex spending reflects durable business needs and that profitability will hold up as new infrastructure comes into service," one strategist told Reuters.
Raising equity, rather than borrowing, is a notable choice in this environment. Selling new shares dilutes existing shareholders but avoids adding to a company's debt burden, and a $95 billion programme — if fully used — would rank among the largest equity raisings ever undertaken by a single company. The at-the-market structure also gives Meta flexibility: it can sell shares when market conditions are favourable and pause when they are not, rather than committing to a single fixed-price offering.
Illustration: A stock market chart rising beneath abstract artificial intelligence network nodes.
Why It Matters
The fundraising matters first for Meta itself. A $95 billion equity war chest would let the company press ahead with its AI data centre programme without leaning entirely on bond markets or its own cash flow, even as the costs of chips, power and construction keep climbing. For shareholders, the trade-off is clear: dilution in exchange for a funded AI strategy, with the value of that strategy still to be proved in future earnings.
Second, it matters as a signal about the AI race. When the world's largest technology companies raise record sums on the same day — Meta with equity, Anthropic heading for the public markets, SpaceX leasing hardware through Apollo — it shows that the competition for AI capacity is intensifying rather than cooling, despite weeks of market anxiety about AI valuations. Reuters' Breakingviews column described the moment as the AI capital race entering a "winnowing phase," in which the best-funded players pull away from the rest.
Third, it matters for markets more broadly. Competition for investor capital is heating up: every dollar that flows into AI infrastructure is a dollar not flowing elsewhere, and the sheer scale of these programmes is now large enough to move bond yields, bank lending and even government borrowing plans. The question investors are asking — whether AI spending generates durable profits — will not be answered this week, but the size of Monday's announcements guarantees it will stay at the centre of market debate through the rest of the year.
What Happens Next
The $35 billion public offerings are under way, while the $60 billion at-the-market programme will be drawn on over time at Meta's discretion, so the full $95 billion will not land in one day. Investors will watch how much of the programme Meta actually uses, at what share prices, and how the company reports the spending in its coming quarterly results.
They will also watch the other two legs of Monday's AI funding story: Anthropic's path to a public listing, and whether SpaceX's hardware-leasing model with Apollo becomes a template for other AI companies seeking capacity without owning it outright. If the market's positive reaction on Monday holds, more record financings could follow; if AI stocks falter again, Meta's decision to raise equity at scale may come to look either prescient or premature. Either way, the company has now put its funding plan for the AI era in plain sight.
Illustration: A modern glass technology headquarters campus at dusk.
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FAQ
How much is Meta trying to raise?
Meta plans to raise up to $95 billion in total: about $35 billion through public offerings of common and convertible preferred stock launched on 26 October 2026, plus up to $60 billion through a separate at-the-market programme for non-voting shares.
Why is Meta raising the money?
According to Reuters, the fundraising is intended to finance Meta's costly AI expansion — the data centres, chips and energy capacity needed to train and run advanced AI models.
Is this Meta's largest equity fundraising?
Yes. Reuters described the planned $95 billion programme as Meta's largest-ever equity fundraising.
What is an at-the-market programme?
An at-the-market programme lets a company sell shares gradually into the open market over time, rather than all at once in a single fixed offering, giving it flexibility on timing and price.
What else happened in AI funding on the same day?
On the same day, 26 October 2026, Anthropic unveiled its prospectus for an initial public offering, and SpaceX announced a deal in which an Apollo Global Management affiliate would buy AI chips and server hardware and lease them to SpaceX, with total principal payments of about $40 billion, according to Reuters.
Sources
- Reuters, "Meta launches $35 billion stock offering to fund AI expansion," 26 October 2026.
- Reuters Breakingviews, "AI capital race sprints into winnowing phase," 26 October 2026.
- Reuters, "Trading Day: AI light, Brazil flight," 26 October 2026.
- Reuters, "Asian stocks surge as Anthropic IPO lifts sentiment ahead of earnings, central banks," 27 October 2026.
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