New York, February 28, 2026, 10:35 EST — Market closed
- Meta shares closed Friday at $648.18, down 1.34%
- Report said Meta struck a multi-year, multi-billion-dollar deal to rent Google’s AI chips
- Investors’ next checkpoint is March 4, with Washington and the conference circuit both in play
Meta Platforms ended Friday down 1.34% at $648.18, heading into the weekend with traders still fixated on the cost of its next wave of artificial-intelligence buildout. Wall Street is closed until Monday. 1
The Information reported Meta has signed a multi-billion-dollar, multi-year agreement to rent Alphabet-owned Google’s Tensor Processing Units, or TPUs, to train new AI models. TPUs are Google’s in-house accelerators, an alternative to Nvidia’s graphics processing units, or GPUs, that dominate AI training. 2
The spending angle is what investors keep coming back to, especially after choppy trading in chip names. “The competitive picture is also shifting as companies like Meta diversify toward AMD,” said Jacob Bourne, analyst at eMarketer. 3
The broader tape did not help on Friday. The S&P 500 fell 0.4% and the Nasdaq dropped 0.9% as investors digested an inflation update and worried about who wins — and loses — in the AI investment cycle. 4
Regulators are another overhang. An adviser to Europe’s top court backed EU regulators in a dispute over Meta’s refusal to comply with document requests tied to antitrust investigations, a non-binding opinion that still sets the tone before a final ruling in coming months. 5
In the United States, a federal judge blocked Virginia from enforcing a law that would have required age checks and capped social media use for users under 16 at one hour a day. The case was brought by NetChoice, a tech trade group whose members include Meta. 6
Insider activity also surfaced in filings. Meta Chief Financial Officer Susan Li, through a trust, sold 55,702 Class A shares on Feb. 24 under a Rule 10b5-1 plan — a pre-arranged trading plan used to schedule sales — according to an SEC Form 4 filed on Feb. 26. 7
On product and safety pressure, Instagram said it will begin alerting parents if teens repeatedly search for suicide or self-harm terms within a short period, with the rollout starting next week in the United States, Britain, Australia and Canada. “These alerts build on our existing work to help protect teens,” the platform said. 8
Next week brings Washington into the frame. The White House said it will host leading data center and AI companies — including Meta — on March 4 to formalize a “Rate Payer Protection Pledge” aimed at limiting the impact of data center power demand on consumer electricity bills; a Meta spokesperson declined to comment. 9
Meta also lists a March 4 slot on its investor calendar for the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference, with a webcast link posted on its investor relations site. 10
But the story can turn fast. Any sign that the AI buildout is getting messier — higher power costs, tighter chip supply, or regulators pushing harder — can hit sentiment even if advertising demand holds up.
When markets reopen on Monday, investors will watch for follow-through from the Google TPU report and for clues on how Meta plans to pay for the next leg of infrastructure. The next hard date on the calendar is Wednesday, March 4.
