Meta plans nonvoting shares to expand AI funding options

Meta plans to create a new class of nonvoting shares that could give it another way to raise capital for artificial intelligence investments, while leaving the voting power of existing shareholders unchanged, Chief Financial Officer Susan Li said during the company’s third-quarter earnings call. Li said the shares would be distributed to existing shareholders through a stock dividend. The new class is intended to be publicly tradable and could be used for capital raising, employee compensation, acquisitions and other corporate purposes. Because the shares would carry no voting rights, issuing them would not alter the voting power of holders of Meta’s existing Class A and Class B shares, she said. The announcement establishes a financing option, not a commitment to sell shares. Meta has not said whether it will conduct an offering or how much it might raise. The company’s stated purposes include a range of corporate uses, with AI investment among the drivers of its expanded financing flexibility. Meta has been increasing its spending on AI, including work on models and computing infrastructure. Its third-quarter revenue was reported at about $64 billion, up 26% from a year...