Meta will create a new class of non‑voting stock to help finance its investments in artificial intelligence, the company confirmed while reporting third‑quarter results. The new shares will be distributed to existing shareholders as a stock dividend.
Susan Li, Meta’s chief financial officer, said the company intends the new non‑voting capital stock to be a publicly traded instrument usable for capital raising, employee compensation, acquisitions, and other general corporate purposes, while preserving the voting power of current Class A and Class B shareholders. Executives said the move supports maintaining a founder‑led governance structure while broadening the company’s funding tools and flexibility to invest behind AI‑driven growth.
Financial results and costs
Meta reported $64 billion in revenue for the quarter, a 26% increase year‑over‑year that topped Wall Street expectations. At the same time, the company’s costs and expenses rose sharply, increasing 68% compared with the same period last year.
Reality Labs, the division responsible for AR glasses, VR headsets and related software, remains unprofitable, although losses have narrowed. Meta said it expects the division’s losses to decline from their 2025 levels to roughly $18–19 billion.
AI products and adoption
Over the past year Meta has released multiple AI models and tools, including Muse Spark and Muse Glimmer earlier in the year, and more recently Muse Wonder and Muse Spark Open, an open‑weight model whose parameters are publicly available. The company also launched Muse Code, a coding agent for software developers, and introduced characterful avatars for its Meta Muse AI assistant at this year’s Meta Connect event to make its services more relatable.
According to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, adoption has been rapid: in about a month and a half, more than 10 million people in the U.S. and Canada set up Muse personal agents. Zuckerberg said the product has achieved a clear product‑market fit and the company is entering a more operational phase focused on scaling the offering, with ambitions to eventually serve billions of people.
Regulatory and legal risks
Meta noted ongoing legal and regulatory matters that could materially affect its business and financial results. Susan Li specifically pointed to scrutiny related to youth‑related issues in several markets and said the company has a number of youth‑related trials scheduled in the United States in the coming months.
In sum, Meta reported strong revenue growth this quarter while also seeing rapidly rising costs. The company is positioning new non‑voting shares as a flexible financing tool to support further AI investment and product scaling, even as it navigates persistent legal and regulatory challenges.
