Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg attends the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on online child sexual exploitation at the U.S. Capitol, in Washington, U.S., January 31, 2024.
Meta Platforms ' stock dropped more than 10% Thursday as skepticism about the payoff from its aggressive artificial intelligence spending plans overshadowed strong results.
The social media giant lifted its 2025 capital expenditures guidance as it races against competitors to build out advanced AI tools. Meta now expects capex to range between $70 billion and $72 billion, versus prior guidance of $66 billion to $72 billion.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg defended the company's ambitious spending plans during the earnings call on Wednesday.
"It's pretty early, but I think we're seeing the returns in the core business," he said. "That's giving us a lot of confidence that we should be investing a lot more, and we [want to] make sure that we're not underinvesting."
Zuckerberg said the company is "aggressively" preemptively building up capacity to prepare for the arrival of superintelligence, where Meta will be "ideally positioned for a generational paradigm shift in many large opportunities."