Meta generates enough staggering profits to make massive investments in artificial intelligence (AI). That was Wall Street's verdict on Wednesday, July 30, after the tech giant, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, released its quarterly results. The share price soared by more than 11% in after-hours trading, reaching $780 (€682). The company was trading at just one-ninth of this value in fall 2022, when its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, was pouring billions of dollars into the metaverse, a three-dimensional virtual future that has yet to materialize, and letting Instagram fall behind the Chinese app TikTok.

All that is now a distant memory, with revenue up 22% in the second quarter compared with the previous year and net profit up 36%. The numbers are dizzying: Over the past 12 months, Meta posted $71.5 billion (€63 billion) in profit – compared with $16 billion for French energy giant TotalEnergies or $14 billion for luxury conglomerate LVMH – on $179 billion in revenue. This momentum will enable the company to invest nearly $70 billion in 2025, $30 billion more than the previous year.

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