Zuckerberg Just Figured Out How to Win Back Wall Street
With a first-ever dividend and expanded share buyback to appease shareholders, Mark Zuckerberg can continue to invest heavily in AI and the metaverse.
Mark Zuckerberg’s “year of efficiency” morphs into a “year of ‘look over there!’”
Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
Meta Platforms Inc.’s efficiency-obsessed investors don’t like to see the company spend money. Unless — and this will shock you — it’s going into their pockets.
The company’s announcement on Thursday that it will pay its first-ever quarterly stock dividend at 50 cents a share — and increase its share buyback plan by $50 billion — set off shareholder fireworks: Up more than 15% after hours, Meta was the best performing of the big tech stocks reporting earnings this week. On Friday, shares rose as much as 21%, poised to add roughly $200 billion to its market value, which would be the biggest single-session addition ever.