Meta Q2 2026 - capex guidance $130-145B, free cash flow collapses 91% on AI buildout
Confirmed
Status
- Claim
Confirmed
- Our reporting
- High confidence
- Importance
- 3 of 5
- Last verified
- 29 September 2026
Your AI and this story
- GPT-6 Astra90 days after its cutoff
- Claude Opus 5.529 days after its cutoff
- Gemini 4 Hydrogen120 days after its cutoff
- Grok 4.759 days after its cutoff
None of these four assistants can know about it. The closest, Claude Opus 5.5, stops 29 days before it.
Key facts
- Q2 2026 revenue: $60.801B, +28% YoY (SEC 8-K exhibit 99.1)
- Q2 capex incl. finance-lease principal: $31.08B
- Full-year 2026 capex guidance: $130-145B
- Full-year 2026 total expenses guidance: $165-169B (raised)
- Q2 free cash flow: $784M vs $8.55B a year earlier (-91%, CNBC)
- Family Daily Active People: 3.60B (June 2026); headcount 75,472 (-1% YoY)
- Stock fell ~9.6% after hours (reported)
What happened
Meta reported Q2 2026 revenue of $60.8B (+28%) but spent $31.1B on capex in the quarter - nearly all of its operating cash flow - and guided full-year capex to $130-145B. Free cash flow fell to $784M from $8.55B a year earlier.
Why it matters
It quantifies the scale of the hyperscaler AI buildout: a single company spending on the order of $130B+ in one year, largely on AI data centers for MSL training and inference, and investors beginning to punish the cash-flow cost.
Sources
3 sources from 3 sites. Numbers match the chips in the text.
3 sources: 1 primary, 2 press
Primary
- Meta Q2 2026 results - SEC Form 8-K exhibit 99.1sec.gov, official
Press
- CNBC - Meta’s stock drops on disappointing guidance, dwindling free cash flowcnbc.com, press
- Investing.com - Meta Q2 2026 slidesinvesting.com, press
Changes
- Filed