Meta’s (META) stock fell Tuesday, ending its 20-session winning streak on Wall Street. Shares of the social media giant fell more than 2.76%, its worst day since Dec. 18. The positive streak stretched back to mid-January and continued through President Trump’s inauguration, which CEO Mark Zuckerberg attended, and the company’s earnings on Jan. 29.
Meta’s stock is up 17% over the last month and 22% year to date.
The company’s stock continued to rally even as Zuckerberg said Meta will spend upwards of $65 billion building on capital expenditures related to AI data centers this year, a significant increase from $40 billion the company said it would spend in 2024.
Zuckerberg says plans include constructing a data center in Richland Parish, La., large enough to cover a massive chunk of Manhattan.
Meta’s wins come as the rest of its Big Tech counterparts struggle in the early weeks of 2025. Shares of Google parent Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL), Apple (AAPL), and Microsoft (MSFT) are each down more than 2% on the year, while Tesla (TSLA) is off more than 12%. Amazon’s (AMZN) stock is up more than 3% year to date but off 1.7% over the last month.
Meta has a few key elements going in its favor, chief among them a sense that the company’s investments in artificial intelligence are paying off better than those of its Big Tech rivals like Google and Microsoft.
“They’ve used [their AI investments] largely to drive their business where … other companies have been trying to be a little bit more all things to all people,” Zeus Kerravala, founder and principal analyst at ZK Research.
Meta is pouring cash into technologies that help power its advertising business and keep users scrolling through their feeds.
“Improvements to our AI-driven feed and video recommendations have led to an 8% increase in time spent on Facebook and a 6% increase on Instagram this year alone,” Zuckerberg explained during the company’s Q3 earnings call in October.
And during Meta’s Q4 call, CFO Susan Li said 4 million advertisers are using the company’s generative AI tools to create ads, up from 1 million six months ago. All of that makes AI an easier sell for investors.
Meta also got a boost from AI startup DeepSeek, which revealed its own open-source AI model it says can rival the best of what ChatGPT and other high-value Silicon Valley AI companies have to offer. The fact that DeepSeek offers its AI as open-source software seemed to validate Zuckerberg’s decision to do the same with Meta’s Llama models.
