Meta raced to a new all-time high on Wall Street on Thursday morning, with the parent company of Facebook and Instagram seeing its share price increase more than 13% to $784.70 per share.
The big jump comes a day after Meta, led by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, reported $47.52 billion in second quarter revenue — easily topping analyst projections. Meta also estimated it would report up to $50 billion in third quarter sales, which also pleased investors, while Zuckerberg and CFO Susan Li, on the earnings call, reiterated that the company is focused on investing heavily in artificial intelligence.
And on the topic of AI, Zuckerberg said “superintelligence” — where AI models beat humans in nearly all tasks — is “in sight.”
His comments on continuing to invest in artificial intelligence come after he said in January this would be a “defining year for AI.” That same month, Zuckerberg said Meta would spend between $60 billion and $65 billion to “significantly” expand its AI team; the company then updated that projection during its first quarter earnings call in April, saying it planned on spending up to $72 billion this year on the tech — a figure Meta once again noted in its second quarter report on Wednesday.
Zuckerberg has already put Meta’s money where his mouth is, with the company investing $14.3 billion in Scale AI, a company that offers a platform and training data for developing AI models, in June. Meta also recently poached four top OpenAI researchers for its AI team, as the company has been extending multiyear offers that reach up to $300 million.
Meta’s previous all-time high was $747.90 per share, set just a month ago. The Menlo Park, California-based company’s stock dipped in the weeks leading up to its Wednesday earnings report, but on the year, Meta’s stock is now up 31%. You can take an up-to-the-minute look at Meta’s stock price, below:
Other standout figures from Meta’s report included net income of $18.34 billion — up 22% year-over-year — and the company said 3.48 billion people now use one of its apps on a daily basis, although Meta did not share specifics on how each of its platforms is performing.
Meta’s big run on Wall Street stands out, considering where the company was just a few years ago. In 2022, Meta’s stock price dropped to $90 per share, after Zuckerberg heavily pushed the “Metaverse” — but the masses ended up not being as excited about the virtual world as he was.
Other tech giants will be sharing their latest earnings reports in the upcoming days, including Apple and Amazon, which are both set to report their Q2 financials on Wednesday afternoon. Check TheWrap.com later to see how they did.
