GoKawiilAlphabet 's stock surged more than 5% on Thursday, while Meta shares plunged 10%, as investors digested first-quarter earnings results, which included plans to up the ante on artificial intelligence spending.
It is pacing to be Meta's worst day since October 2025 and Alphabet's best day since November 2025.
The diverging stock moves show that Wall Street isn't guaranteed to applaud every tech company's AI spending spree.
"The market was less united on what to make of the spending plans, with investors still trying to balance the scale of the AI opportunity against the cash required to chase it," Matt Britzman, an analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, wrote in a Thursday research note. "But the bigger takeaway is that this cycle is nowhere near cooling."
Alphabet topped analysts' estimates for first-quarter revenue, helped by its booming Google Cloud business, which recorded a 63% increase in revenue from a year ago. Google CEO Sundar Pichai said cloud growth was driven by demand for its enterprise AI solutions.
The company revised its capital expenditure forecast this year to between $180 billion and $190 billion, up from its previous estimate of $175 billion to $185 billion.
Meta surpassed Wall Street's expectations for earnings and revenue in the first quarter, though its daily active people, or DAP, were dragged down quarter over quarter by "internet disruptions in Iran."
The company increased its capex plans for the year to a range of $125 billion and $145 billion, compared to its prior range of $115 billion to $135 billion, a move the company said, "reflects our expectations for higher component pricing this year, and to a lesser extent, additional data center costs to support future year capacity."