META Q2 2026 EARNINGS — KEY NUMBERS
● Revenue: Beat expectations — exact figure pending full release; prior quarter $117.8B, up 27% YoY
● 2026 CapEx guidance: $125-145 billion (raised from prior estimate) — AI infrastructure + higher HBM costs
● Meta Compute: Formally announced — will sell spare AI capacity to external customers
● BlackRock deal context: $14B El Paso JV shifts $12.5B of construction cost off balance sheet
● Muse Spark API: First-ever Meta AI API revenue line — $1.25/$4.25/M, US-only preview
● Meta stock: Down ~10% YTD entering Q2 report on CapEx concerns
● Anthropic angle: Reuters reports Meta in talks to lease compute to Anthropic for up to $10B over two years
Why This Earnings Report Is Different
Meta's Q2 2026 report arrives alongside the BlackRock El Paso data center announcement — making it the first Meta earnings where the company is simultaneously a consumer AI product company, a frontier AI model company (Muse Spark), and a compute infrastructure company (Meta Compute). According to CNBC's coverage, shares fell approximately 10% earlier in 2026 after the first-quarter earnings report raised CapEx guidance — investors are scrutinising the cost of AI expansion closely. The BlackRock structure addresses this directly: by offloading 80% of the El Paso construction to institutional capital, Meta reduces the balance sheet pressure from its most ambitious infrastructure projects.
The 2026 CapEx guidance of $125-145 billion is driven by two factors according to Meta CFO Susan Li's prior commentary: higher memory chip pricing (HBM, which SK Hynix supplies — the same supply chain dynamic driving the Nvidia-SK deal) and additional data centre costs tied to AI infrastructure. Invezz notes that the BlackRock structure is designed precisely to manage CapEx investors are paying close attention to — the JV allows Meta to build at greater scale without proportionally increasing reported CapEx.
Meta Compute — A New Revenue Line
Meta Compute, announced as the initiative pairing infrastructure expertise with capital partnerships, is the formal launch of Meta as a compute provider. The El Paso campus will be leased back from BlackRock by Meta — but Meta can then sublease compute capacity to third parties. According to Meta's press release, Meta will "enter into lease agreements with the venture for use of the entire data center campus." Reuters separately reports Meta is in talks to lease capacity to Anthropic for up to $10 billion over two years — which would make Anthropic a key early customer of Meta Compute. Unlike Anthropic's current arrangement with SpaceXAI (Elon Musk's company, which competes with Claude through Grok), a Meta compute deal involves a company whose competitive relationship with Anthropic is less direct.
The Muse Spark API Revenue Signal
Muse Spark 1.1 launched July 9 at $1.25/$4.25/M — Meta's first paid AI API. While it is a US-only preview, it represents Meta's transition from open-weights-only to a mixed model: open Llama weights plus closed paid API for Muse Spark. The API is not material to Q2 revenue given its July 9 launch mid-quarter and US-only restriction. But it is the first evidence of a direct AI API revenue line at Meta, which is relevant to how investors value the company's AI investments going forward. Until Muse Spark, all of Meta's AI investment produced consumer features (Meta AI, WhatsApp AI, Instagram) and cost savings — not a direct API revenue line that competitors like Anthropic and OpenAI have built.
Sources: CNBC · Meta press release · Invezz · Related: Meta × BlackRock El Paso full analysis → · Muse Spark 1.1 review →