Katarzyna Petru
Last night on Wall Street brought a real rollercoaster. Meta, Alphabet and Microsoft – the three pillars of Big Tech – announced their quarterly results, but investor reactions were extremely different.
Meta: AI worth billions and a massive drop in shares
Meta (the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp) has announced a gigantic increase in spending on artificial intelligence. This year's capital expenditure (capex) budget is set to be 70-72 billion dollars, compared to the previous range of 66-72 billion. However, this is just the beginning – the company warned that spending in 2026 will be "significantly higher" than that planned for 2025, which is already set to increase by 30 billion.
Mark Zuckerberg defended the decision, stating:
“This is the right strategy – it is better to aggressively build the infrastructure now to be prepared for the most optimistic scenarios.”
The market did not share this enthusiasm. Meta's shares fell by over 8% in after-hours trading, resulting in a loss of approximately 160 billion dollars in market capitalization – this is the second largest drop in the company's history.
Alphabet: first time over 100 billion in revenue
Google (more precisely Alphabet) surprised very positively – quarterly revenue exceeded 100 billion dollars for the first time in history. Net profits also surpassed analysts' forecasts, and investors responded enthusiastically. Alphabet's shares rose by over 6% after the market closed, making the company the biggest winner of reporting Wednesday.
Microsoft: solid but not euphoric
Microsoft also delivered better-than-expected financial results; however, the growth in the Azure segment – crucial for cloud and AI – did not meet the most optimistic market expectations. This slight disappointment came despite the recent news of a new agreement with OpenAI aimed at increasing computing power for artificial intelligence models.
As a result, Microsoft's shares fell by 3.6%, even though the actual results were decent.
What does it all mean?
Meta goes all in — betting everything on AI, risking short-term declines in stock prices.
Alphabet confirms its dominance in advertising and cloud services, gaining the trust of investors.
Microsoft remains stable, but the market expected a greater effect of the "AI boom."
Investors apparently prefer sensible expansion today (Alphabet) over "all-in on AI" (Meta).
Summary
Company | After-hours change | Main reasons |
|---|---|---|
Meta | ▼ −8% | Aggressive spending on AI, warning of capex increase in 2026 |
Alphabet | ▲ +6% | Record revenues (over $100 billion) |
Microsoft | ▼ −3.6% | Slower Azure growth than expected |
Meta went all in on AI and got hit by the market backlash. Alphabet celebrates record revenues, while Microsoft — despite solid results — must contend with rising expectations.
