Meta Platforms (Nasdaq: META) is cutting spending on the underperforming Metaverse and redirecting resources toward AI initiatives. The stock popped on the news as Wall Street has grown concerned the company’s spending is getting out of hand in 2026.
Meta’s current valuation is low due to investor skepticism, but disciplined execution and AI growth could drive shares significantly higher.
With Meta Platforms trading between 20X and 30X forward earnings, the company’s share price could trade closer to $1,000 per share if Wall Street re-rates the company to closer to 30X forward earnings before the end of 2026.
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Meta Platforms (Nasdaq: META) has faced criticism for investing too heavily in the Metaverse, but the company’s broader business has continued to perform well. During a recent episode of The AI Investor Podcast, 24/7 Analysts Eric Bleeker and Austin Smith discussed whether the announced cutbacks on the Metaverse could help generate even greater returns for Meta in 2026.
The recent announcement that Meta will be acquiring the AI wearable company Limitless has signaled to many a strategic shift toward AI-focused opportunities. Some believe that if Meta executes well, shares could rise toward $900, potentially even $1,000 per share.
“I really like that Zuckerberg is willing to make these big bets,” Smith explained. “That’s what you get with a founder, CEO, who is visionary in the way that he is. But you also gotta know when to fold them, right? And the Metaverse has just not been working out.”
Bleeker added, “If you’re someone who owns Meta, this is objectively positive. If we can see this discipline from them, and if AI continues to boost their business results, there’s an opportunity for shares to trade closer to $900 per share this year. That would be a very bullish case. On the flip side, if they continue spending in ways Wall Street doesn’t like, you could see them trading as low as $500 per share, the low end of their baseline.”
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This conversation was from our most recent episode of The AI Investor Podcast. In the show we invest $500,000 portfolio filled with our top AI stock ideas.
Meta is one of the stocks in the portfolio, but our biggest winners have seen returns like 418%, 289%, and 211% already (the portfolio only launched about a year ago!)
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Austin Smith: Meta has had its own anchor. Now that’s weird to say for a company whose shares have performed as well as they have, and Meta’s a bigger company than the Metaverse. But when you think about the one big criticism that people have had of Meta in the last few years, it’s been why is Mark Zuckerberg flushing so much money down the metaverse drain? Nobody believes in it. The traction has been really low. So Meta has a lot more going for it than that, and that’s been enough to overwhelm that one core criticism. But that has been the biggest criticism I’ve heard, and frankly, it’s a criticism I share.
I really like that Zuckerberg is willing to make these big bets. That’s what you get with a founder CEO who is visionary in the way that he is. But you also gotta know when to fold them, right? And the Metaverse has just not been working out. So Meta finally announcing that they’re cutting some of the revenue out of that division. Wall Street rewarded it. I think they should. That’s the right call.
Anything you saw in this that’s interesting? Just cutting out from that tiny anchor and saying, “Hey, Metaverse, this capital has a higher return for the company and a shorter path to revenue: AI,” right? AI internally, AI externally, it’s clearly a better place to deploy that money.
Eric Bleeker: Yeah. Well, if we are doing Glengarry Glen Ross, you know, what is it? The winner gets a car. The second place gets steak knives and last gets fired. If you looked at the Magnificent Seven this year, Google is the car, NVIDIA gets the steak knives. Google’s up 70%, NVIDIA’s up 35%. And then the laggards are some combination of Microsoft, Apple, Meta, and Amazon – up zero to 15% – all slightly underperforming the S&P.
Meta has been disappointing, especially from where we purchased it. I have wanted to move out of the portfolio. The problem is, if you go back and look at Meta’s stock the past two years, it’s a very tight range. They’re trading between 20 and 30 times forward earnings. And right now, they’re at the bottom of that valuation. It’s because the market doesn’t believe in them specifically. They were sold off very harshly because of how high their operating costs are rising last quarter.
We’ve got two sides to Meta. One is that AI has more potential to drive their business than any other company. I believe there’s a study that generative AI leads to 19% better click-through rates on ads, which is going to make their products better. They’re going to be able to create new products. We know the ROI. But if they’re spending so much in this rush for ASI and they’re behind in those efforts, investors aren’t going to believe in that narrative.
So I’ve wanted to see them rise to higher, closer to that 30 times forward earnings multiple, like Google’s closer to right now, before I sell it off and redeploy that cash. This is a great step in that direction. They need to be cutting some costs. They need to show the market they have discipline. And we saw the day they announced this, they were up 4%. So if you’re someone who owns Meta, this is objectively positive.
If we can see this discipline from them, and if AI continues to boost their business results, there’s an opportunity for shares to trade closer to $900 per share this year. That would be a very bullish case. On the flip side, if they continue spending in ways Wall Street doesn’t like, you could see them trading as low as $500 per share, the low end of their baseline. We’ll see where they trade, which depends a lot on how they handle this cost discipline throughout the year.
Austin Smith: It’s interesting to talk about cost discipline in a world where Meta is also being punished for spending so much on AI. But this is what cost discipline is, right? If they believe in AI and the ROI on Metaverse isn’t there, they need to cut in one category and move that money to the other. And they’re doing that. Just yesterday, Meta announced they’re acquiring an AI wearable company, Limitless. It’s not a big acquisition in terms of total dollars, but it shows that they are reducing the thing that’s not working and putting more money in the thing that is working, which is AI. That is good financial discipline. Whether or not the AI bets pay off is the next Meta question that Wall Street has, but at least they are not sticking poorly with the Metaverse bet.
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