Analysts lower Meta price targets after social media giant says AI capex will keep climbing

Meta may have posted record revenue Wednesday but the stock is deeply in the red in the wake of its third-quarter earnings report, after the social media company said that its capital expenditure on AI would continue to rise.

The earnings prompted a number of analysts to lower their price targets or downgrade the stock.

RBC Capital lowered its price target to $810 from $840. Bank of America Securities lowered its price target to $810 from $900. Barclays, JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank, and Wells Fargo also lowered their price targets on the company.

Earlier today, Benchmark downgraded its rating to a “hold” from a “buy.” Oppenheimer downgraded the company to “perform” from “outperform,” saying the “significant investment in Superintelligence despite unknown revenue opportunity mirrors 2021/2022 Metaverse spending.” Ouch.

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Jon Keegan9h

White House releases AI legislative framework

The White House has released its policy wish list for AI legislation — and what it wants excluded.

Still, the odds of any actual AI regulation getting passed in Congress right now are very slim.

The “National Policy Framework” for AI lays out seven issues that the Trump administration wants to see reflected in any congressional action around AI.

The items listed in the framework include:

Child safety protections, age verification, and parental controls for AI.
Data center projects voluntarily pay their own way when it comes to power, but incentives should still be encouraged.
Copyright laws should allow for training models on copyrighted works, while protecting individuals’ voice and likeness.
Free speech should be defended for AI systems, preventing the government from pressuring companies to ban or alter content based on partisan agendas.
A light touch to regulation to encourage innovation, and no federal agency to regulate AI.
American workers vulnerable to AI job replacement should be retrained and supported.
Federal AI rules should preempt any state AI legislation to prevent a patchwork of laws that companies would hate.

The policy list is the latest in a series of proposals from the AI-friendly Trump administration.

President Donald J. Trump Unveils National AI Legislative Framework

The items listed in the framework include:

Child safety protections, age verification, and parental controls for AI.
Data center projects voluntarily pay their own way when it comes to power, but incentives should still be encouraged.
Copyright laws should allow for training models on copyrighted works, while protecting individuals’ voice and likeness.
Free speech should be defended for AI systems, preventing the government from pressuring companies to ban or alter content based on partisan agendas.
A light touch to regulation to encourage innovation, and no federal agency to regulate AI.
American workers vulnerable to AI job replacement should be retrained and supported.
Federal AI rules should preempt any state AI legislation to prevent a patchwork of laws that companies would hate.

The policy list is the latest in a series of proposals from the AI-friendly Trump administration.

SPACE

CASE

Rani Molla, Nate Becker9h

Jon Keegan11h

WSJ: OpenAI rolling everything into one desktop “superapp”

OpenAI is trying to eliminate distractions and focus on building AI that helps with enterprise productivity tasks like coding and organizing spreadsheets.

As part of that effort, the startup is consolidating some of its “side quests” into one “superapp,” according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.

The plan is to merge ChatGPT, Codex, and the Atlas browser together, as it seeks to focus its efforts as it competes with Anthropic and Google for lucrative enterprise customers.

OpenAI Head of Apps Fidji Simo told staffers in an internal memo that “we realized we were spreading our efforts across too many apps and stacks, and that we need to simplify our efforts. That fragmentation has been slowing us down and making it harder to hit the quality bar we want,” per the report.

Exclusive | OpenAI Plans Launch of Desktop ‘Superapp’ to Refocus, Simplify User Experience

The plan is to merge ChatGPT, Codex, and the Atlas browser together, as it seeks to focus its efforts as it competes with Anthropic and Google for lucrative enterprise customers.

Rani Molla

Semi charmed

12h

What we know about Tesla’s Semi truck as production nears

Musk says “high-volume production” will start this year. Wall Street thinks that’s more like 5,000 to 15,000 trucks.

Tom Jones

ill-versed

12h

The metaverse’s slow, drawn-out demise is getting painful

Maybe Meta execs are just picking out a nice $80 billion plot in the Big Tech graveyard.

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