breaking / Big Tech

🚨 Meta Just Made $64.6 Billion in Three Months — and It's Splitting Its Stock With a New Non-Voting Share

Meta's Q3 revenue hit $64.6B, up 26%, and it's creating non-voting Class C shares in a two-for-one split to help fund its AI buildout.

By Tech Arcade··2 min read

Meta Just Made $64.6 Billion in Three Months — and It's Splitting Its Stock With a New Non-Voting Share — Tech Arcade

Meta just reported $64.6 billion in revenue for the third quarter, up 26% on a year ago, in results released at 4:01pm New York time on Wednesday (21:01 London) (Meta).

That beats the roughly $63.3 billion Wall Street expected (MarketBeat). But the headline buried at the bottom of the release is bigger: Meta is creating a brand-new class of non-voting Class C shares and handing one to every existing shareholder.

In other words, a two-for-one stock split where the new half comes with no vote.

⚡ What Happened

  • Revenue: $64.60 billion, up 26%. Ad impressions rose 10% and the average price per ad rose 14%.
  • Profit: net income of $9.86 billion, or $3.83 a share. That figure carries a $9.89 billion charge for Meta’s settlement with 52 US state attorneys general over teen mental health. Strip it out and earnings per share would have been $7.40, against a consensus of about $6.54.
  • Spending: capital expenditure hit $34.91 billion in the quarter, and free cash flow went negative, at minus $2.12 billion.
  • Next quarter: Meta guided to $73–76 billion in revenue and narrowed its 2026 capex range to $135–145 billion.
  • Headcount: 66,775, down 15% in a year.

The Class C dividend takes effect after a charter change dated January 19, 2027. Meta says the new shares are for “capital raising, employee compensation, potential acquisitions” and that the move keeps Mark Zuckerberg in charge. It also signed a “Founder Alignment Agreement” with him covering his sales of Class C stock.

🧠 Why It Matters

AI data centres are eating cash. Meta is spending about $35 billion a quarter on buildout, and this quarter that outran the cash the business brought in.

Non-voting shares give Meta a new way to pay for it: it can sell stock or pay people in stock without diluting Zuckerberg’s control. The release says the class exists so Meta can “finance its growth.” If you hold the stock, your voting power doesn’t change, but future Meta share issuance may come in a form that carries no vote at all.

Shares rose about 4% in extended trading shortly after the release, to around $726 (MarketBeat).

🔜 What To Watch

  • The 4:30pm ET earnings call, where analysts will push on 2027 spending. Meta gave no 2027 revenue outlook, only a promise of “strong overall revenue growth.”
  • The Form 8-K and information statement, which will spell out the Zuckerberg agreement and the record date for the Class C dividend.
  • Reality Labs, which Meta now expects to lose around $15 billion in 2027, down from $18–19 billion this year.

The call is still to come, and the share-price reaction is early, so expect the picture to move tonight.

Sources

❓ Quick answers

How much revenue did Meta make in Q3 2026?

Meta reported $64.60 billion in revenue for the quarter ended September 30, 2026, up 26% year on year, according to its October 21 earnings release.

What is Meta's new Class C stock?

It is a new publicly listed, non-voting share class. Meta will give one Class C share for every Class A and Class B share, which it says will act like a two-for-one stock split, after a charter change effective January 19, 2027.

Why did Meta's Q3 2026 profit fall short of expectations on a reported basis?

Reported EPS was $3.83 because of a $9.89 billion charge for its settlement with 52 US state attorneys general; excluding that charge, EPS would have been $7.40, per Meta's release.