Meta Is Raising Almost $98 Billion by Selling Stock to Pay for AI. Nvidia and AMD Are Buying In.

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On October 26, 2026, Meta said it would raise about $95 billion by selling its own stock. The plan was about $35 billion of underwritten offerings — roughly $22.5 billion of Class A common and $12.5 billion of depositary shares representing Series A mandatory convertible preferred — plus a further $60 billion at-the-market program, to begin once its new Class C stock trades. Meta said the money supports its "continued investment in AI infrastructure and personal superintelligence" 1.

The next day the common sale was upsized to $25 billion and priced at $625 a share, and the total reached almost $98 billion, which Bloomberg, through the Financial Post, called one of the largest equity offerings in history 2. Demand ran about five times the shares on sale 3, and the 15 largest investors took about 70% of them 4. Meta closed on October 27 at $620.19, down 1.6%, below the price of the offering 5.

Selling stock cuts the same company into more pieces, and the cost lands on everyone already holding it. That is a real price to pay for a company that generated $97 billion of operating cash flow in the first three quarters of 2026 and held about $82 billion of cash and securities at the end of the third quarter, with Aa3/AA- credit ratings that let it borrow cheaply 1. The reason is the size of the bill: capital expenditure of $135 billion to $145 billion in 2026, four superclusters of more than a gigawatt of capacity each, and total infrastructure capacity on track to nearly double this year 1. Third-quarter revenue was $64.6 billion, up 26%, with net income of $9.9 billion and free cash flow that had turned negative 6.

The chipmakers bought in. Nvidia said it would invest $3 billion and AMD $1 billion 7. Nvidia, AMD and Broadcom had earlier indicated interest in up to $5.0 billion of the common stock in aggregate, "severally and not jointly", and Meta noted those indications were not binding 1. Nvidia said Meta would expand Vera Rubin and Vera CPU deployment and deepen its work on Muse; AMD said its Helios racks were running at Meta and its EPYC processors were powering Muse 7. Both are already the industry's most active investors: Nvidia took part in 121 investment rounds in 2026, up from 13 in 2022, and AMD in 25, up from two, including an investment of up to $5 billion in Anthropic in July 7.

Meta is not alone in the queue. Alphabet said in June it would look to raise $85 billion, SpaceX closed $40 billion of debt financing to buy GPUs, Anthropic is preparing an IPO, and TikTok U.S. is looking for multiple gigawatts of capacity 6. Alphabet and Intel both held rare stock sales earlier this year, and both were oversubscribed 2. Goldman Sachs estimates AI-related capital spending across compute, data centers and power at about $7.6 trillion from 2026 through 2031 6.

The fine print matters for anyone reading the headline number. The common stock was launched alongside forward sale agreements with Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, so Meta does not receive that cash up front; it is paid as the agreements settle, on dates it picks on or before November 19, 2027 1. The preferred converts automatically on or about August 15, 2029. The $60 billion at-the-market program has no agreement behind it, and Meta does not expect it to start before the first quarter of 2027 1. Two of the three buckets are priced; the largest one is not.

Reporting cut off at October 28, 2026. If the at-the-market program starts, or a regulator asks about chipmakers buying their customer's stock, that is the next episode.