Meta is selling up to $25 billion of bonds to help pay for its artificial intelligence build-out, days after one of the major credit rating agencies turned negative on the company's outlook. The sale on 3 November 2026 is the latest sign that even the richest tech companies are now leaning heavily on debt to fund AI.
The bond sale
CNBC reported that Meta was aiming to raise between $20 billion and $25 billion, with about two-thirds in US dollars and one-third in euros. It is Meta's first euro-denominated bond. Bloomberg said Meta had initially been seeking at least $20 billion and that the sale was marketed to investors on Monday and Tuesday. One outlet citing social media posts reported that the order book reached about $58 billion and that the longest-dated bonds carried a higher premium than those Meta sold in April. Those details were not confirmed by the larger outlets.
Why the rating agency worried
On Friday, S&P Global Ratings changed its outlook on Meta from stable to negative while keeping its AA- rating, citing uncertainty over the company's heavy capital spending and negative free cash flow. Meta said in October that full-year capital expenditure will be $135 billion to $145 billion, raising the low end of its guidance by $5 billion. It reported negative free cash flow of $2.12 billion for its latest quarter, joining Alphabet and Amazon in posting a negative figure.
A big financing push
The bonds follow a series of other moves:
- Last week Meta raised $37.5 billion by selling $25 billion of common stock and $12.5 billion of mandatory convertible preferred shares.
- It plans to sell up to $60 billion more of its stock gradually from early 2027, taking its stated plan to about $95 billion.
- In April it sold $25 billion of bonds with orders peaking near $96 billion, and a year earlier it sold a record $30 billion.
Meta is not alone. On the same day, Oracle filed to sell $10 billion of new shares and $10 billion of senior notes, and Alphabet raised 6 billion euros in euro bonds, according to Technology.org.
What it means
The question hanging over the AI boom is whether the money being spent will earn enough to justify the borrowing. Meta has enormous advertising revenue to support its debt, and its supporters argue AI is improving its ad business. Skeptics point to rising costs, negative cash flow and the growing use of external financing. Economists have also asked whether the benefits of AI spending reach beyond the technology sector. For ordinary readers, the debt matters because AI infrastructure costs eventually shape the prices of cloud services and AI tools, and because stress in credit markets can spread to the wider economy.
This article is a news report and not investment advice.
Sources: CNBC (3 November 2026); Bloomberg, via Billionaires Africa; Technology.org; Briefs Finance; FourWeekMBA; The Next Web.
