Meta’s $145B AI Bill and the Great 2026 Efficiency Trap

The Big Idea

In 2023, Mark Zuckerberg christened it Meta’s “year of efficiency”—a sunny label for eliminating roughly 21,000 jobs while the company’s stock surged 178%. Three years later, that slogan has curdled into something far more awkward: Meta is now guiding 2026 AI capital spending as high as $145 billion, even though Zuckerberg himself admits AI “hasn’t really accelerated” revenue. This is the AI efficiency trap in its purest form. The technology sold as a way to do more with less...