Prediction: Meta Will be Worth $2 Trillion on This Date

The market is penalizing META for a capital-intensity regime change, not for near-term operating weakness. That distinction matters: when a platform with Meta’s ad engine is still compounding revenue and earnings at this pace, incremental spend can either look like waste or like a call option on the next compute stack — and investors usually need one more quarter of proof before they pay for the latter. The current selloff looks more like a trust deficit around capex efficiency than a deterioration in core demand, which is why the stock can drift even after a blowout print.

Second-order winners are likely to be the adjacent infrastructure and AI picks-and-shovels names that monetize Meta’s buildout regardless of whether the company’s own multiple expands. The risk is that the capex wave creates temporary demand for GPUs, networking, power, and datacenter services, but if monetization lags, those suppliers may still outperform on orders while the broader AI complex de-rates on rising skepticism about payback periods. In other words, META’s spending can support an ecosystem trade even if META itself remains range-bound.

The real catalyst is not another beat alone; it is evidence that added compute is translating into better ad pricing, higher conversion, or new AI-native products within one to two quarters. If management can show that margin pressure is peaking while revenue acceleration persists, the stock can rerate quickly because positioning is already defensive and analyst models appear anchored to headline capex rather than unit economics. Conversely, another guidance raise without a visible monetization bridge would likely extend the derating for months, not days.

The contrarian read is that the consensus may be underestimating Meta’s ability to amortize a massive AI investment across a distribution base no pure-play AI company has. If personal AI features become sticky inside the family of apps, the market may be too focused on the cost of building intelligence and too slow to price the monetization of attention, commerce, and creator tools. That keeps the long-term upside intact, but the path is likely choppier than the bullish narrative implies.