Meta’s AI spending spree revives a financial-crisis playbook

Meta wants to win the AI race so badly that it is now borrowing tricks from the era of the financial crisis to pay for it. The company expects 2026 capital expenditures of $130 billion to $145 billion. That is close to double the $72 billion it spent in 2025, and the money is going mostly into AI infrastructure. The numbers behind the build-out Start with free cash flow, the money left over after a company pays for operations and investment. In Q2 2026, Meta’s free cash flow came in at $784 million. A year earlier, the same figure was $8.55 billion. That works out to a 91% year-over-year drop. Debt is climbing alongside the spending. Meta’s long-term debt reached $83.7 billion as of Q2 2026, following its heavy capex push. Then there is the part that draws the financial-crisis comparison. Meta’s off-balance-sheet commitments could total around $420 billion, according to estimates in the research. That estimate includes leases and special-purpose vehicles tied to data centers. A special-purpose vehicle is a separate legal entity set up to hold specific assets or debt, keeping those obligations off the parent company’s main books. Zuckerberg’s all-in bet CEO Mark Zuckerberg is not ba...