Meta Lifts AI Spend to $145B, Tesla and IBM Beat

Meta lifted its 2026 capital spending outlook to $135 billion to $145 billion and created a new class of non-voting stock, Bloomberg Podcasts reported, pushing shares up about 5% after hours.

The new Class C shares will be distributed to existing investors through a stock dividend and be used for capital fundraising, employee pay and potential acquisitions without diluting Mark Zuckerberg's control, hosts Tim Stavec and Carol Masser said. Meta also guided fourth-quarter revenue to $73 billion to $76 billion, building on a third quarter where revenue hit $64.60 billion and beat estimates, according to CryptoBriefing.

Tesla beat on profit but not on sales.

Adjusted earnings were 48 cents per share with $1.5 billion in free cash flow and a 19.6% gross margin that topped estimates, while revenue came in narrowly below expectations, Bloomberg Podcasts reported. Shares ticked up just 0.2% after hours as the company said it was exploring a possible merger with SpaceX through special committees but had reached no agreement, a topic also noted in Stocks Rise After AI Selloff; SpaceX IPO Anticipated, and reported its largest passenger vehicle backlog in four years with no mention of the deal in the shareholder deck.

IBM steadied after a brutal summer slide. Sales rose about 5% to $17.1 billion in the quarter ended September 30, and CFO Jim Kavanaugh told Bloomberg's Brody Ford about two thirds of mainframe and associated software deals that slipped earlier this year have since been inked.

That rebound matters because IBM had said in July that customers shifted spending to chips and servers amid AI-fueled shortages, a warning that helped trigger a 25% one-day plunge, its worst since at least 1968, and investors worried AI would disrupt software incumbents. IBM shares were up about 3.25% after hours, but the recovery still leaves the mainframe cycle dependent on those delayed deals actually closing.