Meta Platforms Inc. generated $59.36 billion in second-quarter advertising revenue, up 27% from a year earlier and accounting for nearly all of its $60.8 billion in total revenue. The performance underscores how the company’s advertising marketplace is financing its increasingly expensive artificial intelligence push, even as Chamath Palihapitiya argues that Mark Zuckerberg avoids highlighting Meta’s advertising roots to attract elite engineers who prefer space, search or AI companies. Palihapitiya made the remarks on X on August 19, 2026, while responding to technology analyst Ben Thompson, who said Meta and Google may already be monetizing AI more effectively than frontier laboratories such as OpenAI and Anthropic. Meta raised its 2026 capital-spending forecast to $130 billion-$145 billion. The company is also competing aggressively for AI talent, with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman saying last year that Meta offered some OpenAI employees $100 million signing bonuses and even larger annual compensation packages. Meta has pursued additional AI monetization through lower-priced model access and potential compute sales beyond advertising. Emarketer projected Meta would generate $243.46 billion in 2026 net advertising revenue, ahead of Google’s $239.54 billion. Benzinga rankings put Meta’s stock in the 9th percentile for Momentum and the 77th percentile for Growth.