Meta’s Future Spending Commitments Reach $825 Billion
Most of the leases and contracts tie to data centers, energy and computing power, and Meta's free cash flow turned negative last quarter as spending outran income.
Meta has agreed to pay about $825 billion in the future under leases and contracts, many of them for data centers, energy and computing power, according to a company filing reported by Bloomberg on Oct 22, 2026. In July, Meta reported spending commitments of almost $700 billion.
| Commitment | Amount | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Leases not yet on the balance sheet | $355.7 billion | Data center and energy sites, from late 2026 through 2036 |
| Non-cancellable contracts | $454.5 billion | Third-party cloud computing, data center energy, Reality Labs hardware |
| Cloud capacity purchase | $14.7 billion | Five-year deal; can shrink if the provider resells capacity |
The cost is already showing up in Meta’s cash. Its third-quarter results show capital expenditures of $34.91 billion, including finance lease payments, and free cash flow of negative $2.12 billion, compared with positive $10.63 billion a year earlier. Capital spending exceeded the $32.79 billion Meta’s operations generated in the quarter, SiliconANGLE noted.
Revenue rose 26% to $64.60 billion. Costs climbed 68%, partly because of a $9.89 billion legal charge tied to a settlement with state attorneys general over teen mental health. Meta raised the bottom of its 2026 capital spending range by $5 billion, to between $135 billion and $145 billion, and said it will keep investing heavily in 2027 without giving a revenue forecast for that year.
Part of the demand comes from Meta’s own products. Its Muse personal agent has not launched globally because it needs so much computing power, and Meta expects to make it more than 10 times cheaper to run within a year, SiliconANGLE reported from the earnings call. Mark Zuckerberg told investors the company’s “investments are paying off.”
Meta is also creating a new nonvoting Class C stock. Each Class A and Class B share will receive one Class C share, which Meta says should work like a two-for-one split without changing anyone’s voting power. Bloomberg reported the new shares could eventually help pay for acquisitions and other costs. Record and payment dates have not been set.
Meta guided to fourth-quarter revenue between $73 billion and $76 billion. It expects Reality Labs losses to narrow to about $15 billion in 2027.
Our take
Meta is asking investors to judge it on the next three years, not the last quarter. About $825 billion in commitments, much of it for data centers, energy and cloud capacity, is a bet that products like Muse will grow into all that computing power. The quarter shows the strain: capital spending outran the cash the business produced, and free cash flow went negative even as revenue grew 26%. The nonvoting shares give Meta another way to pay without loosening control. Watch two numbers: whether free cash flow recovers, and whether Muse really gets 10 times cheaper to run.
Anshul Kumawat, Founder and Editor
How this story was checked
- ResearchedWith AI assistance · 3 sources
- Fact-checkedAgainst the original sources
- EditedAnshul Kumawat, Founder and Editor
- Published
Sources
- OfficialMeta: Meta Reports Third Quarter 2026 Results (opens in a new tab)
- News outletBloomberg via Yahoo Finance: Meta reports $825 billion in future spending commitments (opens in a new tab)
- News outletSiliconANGLE: Meta beats on revenue and splits its stock two for one with non-voting Class C shares (opens in a new tab)
Anshul Kumawat is the founder and editor of AI News Lead, covering AI products, business and policy. He also founded the cricket publication Cricket Voices.
