S&P revises Meta’s outlook to negative as the AI spending bill keeps growing

The credit agency's move lands alongside Meta's first negative free cash flow in more than a decade and a higher capex forecast S&P Global Ratings has revised its outlook on Meta Platforms to negative. That is a polite way of saying one of the world’s most watched credit agencies is getting nervous about how the company pays for its AI ambitions. The timing is hard to ignore. The revision coincides with Meta’s Q3 2026 earnings, a report that paired strong revenue growth with a cash flow number the company has not posted in years. Great sales, awkward cash On the top line, Meta delivered. Revenue came in at $64.6 billion for the quarter, a 26% increase from the same period a year earlier. The trouble sits further down the statement. Meta recorded its first negative free cash flow in more than a decade, approximately -$2.12 billion for the quarter. The reason is no mystery. Meta raised its 2026 capital expenditure guidance to a range of $135 billion to $145 billion, a $5 billion increase at the low end. Capex is the money a company pours into long-lived assets like data centers, servers and chips. For Meta, the bulk of that bill is tied to building the infrastructure behind its A...