Meta puts Muse agent at heart of AI strategy, plans new stock to power investments — SkimNews
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- Meta announced a new class of non-voting Class C shares effective January 2027 — effectively a two-for-one split — to fund AI acquisitions and retention while preserving Zuckerberg's voting control.
- Muse signed up more than 10 million users in the US and Canada within roughly six weeks; Zuckerberg said the agent could eventually serve "billions" and generate more revenue per user than the average Meta customer.
- Meta beat Q3 estimates with $64.60 billion in revenue, guided Q4 to $73–76 billion versus a $73.73 billion consensus, and lifted its annual capital-expenditure range to $135–145 billion (from $130–145 billion).
- Meta swung to a $2.12 billion Q3 free cash flow deficit from $10.63 billion positive a year earlier, and posted diluted EPS of $3.83 that would have reached $7.40 absent a $9.89 billion charge tied to August's youth-settlement.
- Reality Labs will refocus on AI as Meta reallocates investment, with its losses projected to narrow to roughly $15 billion next year from the metaverse build-out.
- Meta was hit Wednesday with a $25 billion New Mexico civil penalty over Cambridge Analytica–era claims that it misled users on third-party data sharing and content moderation — on top of the $18 billion August youth-addiction settlement.
Why it matters: Meta is burning cash at unprecedented scale — a $135–145 billion capex envelope, a $2.12 billion Q3 free cash flow deficit, and a $25 billion legal penalty — to fund a Muse rollout that has reached 10 million users in six weeks but won't produce meaningful AI revenue diversification until 2027, per CFO Susan Li. The market has flipped from punishing the spending to rewarding the product story, leaving investors newly exposed if Muse monetization slips or legal drag deepens.
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