Meta Raises 2026 Capex Guidance to $125-145B as Q1 Revenue Hits $56.3B (META)

Meta Platforms reported Q1 2026 revenue of $56.31 billion, up 33% year over year, in a Form 8-K Item 2.02 filing on April 29, 2026, with diluted earnings per share of $10.44.

The headline is the capex raise, not the earnings beat. Meta Platforms (Nasdaq: META) lifted its full-year 2026 capital expenditures guidance to a range of $125 to $145 billion, up from a prior range of $115 to $135 billion, in the CFO outlook attached to its April 29 Form 8-K. The reasons, per the press release: higher component pricing and additional data center costs to support future-year capacity. Q1 revenue of $56.31 billion (up 33%) and Q1 capex of $19.84 billion frame the print.

The numbers sit inside Meta’s April 29, 2026 Form 8-K (accession number 0001628280-26-028364), which furnishes Items 2.02 (Results of Operations and Financial Condition) and 9.01 (Financial Statements and Exhibits). The press release attached as Exhibit 99.1 carries the quarterly results and the CFO outlook commentary. All comparisons are to the same quarter of 2025 unless noted.

The Capex Raise Is the News

The capital expenditure line is what moves the broader AI infrastructure thesis. Capital expenditures (capex) are the dollars a company spends to build long-lived physical assets like data centers, servers, and network gear. Q1 capex was $19.84 billion. The new full-year range of $125 to $145 billion implies roughly $35 to $42 billion of capex per quarter for the remaining nine months, near double the Q1 pace.

The press release gives two reasons for raising both ends of the range by $10 billion. The first is “higher component pricing this year,” industry shorthand for the graphics processing units (GPUs, the AI training chips Nvidia and AMD sell) and the supporting memory, networking, and power equipment that go into a hyperscale rack. The second is “additional data center costs to support future year capacity.” Read together, the raise says GPU and rack costs are running hotter than the January plan and Meta wants more capacity sooner.

The signal carries beyond Meta. Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) reported $30.9 billion of property and equipment additions in its own April 29 fiscal third quarter print. Two megacaps in one day pointed at the same arithmetic: AI capex is still scaling, not bending. Alphabet (Nasdaq: GOOGL) and Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) report next, and the cohort thesis prices off whether they echo the same trajectory.

The Top Line and the Cost Side

Revenue grew 33%, but costs grew slightly faster. Total costs and expenses rose 35% to $33.44 billion. Operating income was $22.87 billion, up 30%, and operating margin held at 41%, the same level as Q1 2025. Family daily active people (DAP, Meta’s combined unique-user count across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads) averaged 3.56 billion in March 2026, up 4% year over year. Ad impressions across the apps rose 19% and average price per ad rose 12%.

Cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities ended the quarter at $81.18 billion. Cash flow from operating activities was $32.23 billion. Free cash flow, the operating cash left after capex, was $12.39 billion. Headcount was 77,986, up roughly 1% year over year. The press release does not break out Reality Labs (Meta’s augmented- and virtual-reality segment) operating loss; that detail lives in the 10-Q footnotes when those land.

The Tax Benefit That Lifted EPS

Reported earnings per share got a one-time tax tailwind that will not repeat. Meta recognized an $8.03 billion income tax benefit in the quarter, which dropped its effective tax rate to negative 23%. The benefit partially offsets a $15.93 billion non-cash tax charge Meta booked in Q3 2025 when the One Big Beautiful Bill Act was enacted. Without the Q1 benefit, the effective tax rate would have been 37 points higher and diluted EPS $3.13 lower (a “clean” Q1 EPS closer to $7.31).

The mechanism is a U.S. Treasury Notice (2026-7) that addressed how the Corporate Alternative Minimum Tax (a 15% minimum tax that applies to very large companies) treats research and development costs companies had previously capitalized for tax purposes. Meta now expects its tax rate for the rest of 2026 to be 13 to 16%.

What to Watch

The 10-Q capex cadence: Q1 was $19.84 billion. The new full-year range requires the remaining quarters to step up to roughly $35 to $42 billion each. Whether that pace materializes in Q2 will tell you if the raise reflects pulled-forward orders or a new run rate.

Component pricing across the cohort: Meta named “higher component pricing” as the first driver of the raise. Watch Alphabet, Amazon, and Apple capex commentary for the same language. Cost pressure that shows up across multiple hyperscalers usually traces back to the GPU and HBM memory supply chain.

Meta Superintelligence Labs: Mark Zuckerberg called Q1 a “milestone quarter” because of “the release of our first model from Meta Superintelligence Labs.” Watch for product, capability, and adoption disclosures across the next two quarters.

EU and U.S. legal exposure: The press release flags “additional trials scheduled for this year in the U.S.” on youth-related issues that “may ultimately result in a material loss.” That is a forward-looking risk factor management put in writing, not a settled liability.