A wax head of Mark Zuckerberg on a robot dog as a part of an art installation called “Regular Animals” by Beeple (Chandan Khanna/Getty Images)

Reality Check

Meta will suffer the most from shouldering higher data center costs

Meta is no Google or Microsoft, but it’s spending like it is.

Rani Molla

Meta is down more than 2% today — a plunge that likely has something to do with President Trump’s post Monday evening saying tech companies would have to “pay their own way” when it comes to data center electricity, rather than passing those costs on to consumers. Residential electric bills have climbed as data center demand has surged.

Microsoft has already moved in that direction, becoming the first major tech company to outline how it plans to absorb the power costs of its expanding data infrastructure, including a commitment to “pay utility rates that are high enough to cover our electricity costs.” It’s likely the rest of Big Tech will follow suit.

Which brings us back to Meta. The company, like its peers, has been ramping up spending on data center infrastructure to fuel its AI ambitions.

But Meta is different from Google, Amazon, and Microsoft: it’s largely building AI infrastructure for its own products, not for a cloud business that sells that capacity to customers. While Meta has said AI is boosting other revenue streams, primarily advertising, it isn’t a stand-alone revenue driver.

That makes higher data center electricity bills more of a liability for Meta than for its cloud-heavy peers. When Meta spends more on AI, investors tend to squirm.

Meta also confirmed Monday that it would be laying off more than 1,000 workers in its Reality Labs division as it pivots more to AI. Separately, Bloomberg reported that Meta and EssilorLuxottica are considering doubling production capacity for their AI-powered Ray-Ban smart glasses.

Rani Molla5h

Google reaches record high and crosses $4 trillion market cap after major wins for Gemini

Google parent Alphabet closed yesterday at a record-high stock price of $331.86, giving the company a market capitalization just above $4 trillion, as investors reward a string of wins for its Gemini AI model, including high-profile partnerships with Apple and Walmart.

After months of speculation, Apple announced a multiyear partnership to use Gemini to power its AI assistant, Siri, a major endorsement of Google’s AI prowess. That same day, Walmart said it would partner with Google to let customers purchase products directly through the Gemini chatbot, a move that would put Gemini in front of millions of Walmart shoppers and test whether AI chatbots can drive real commerce at scale rather than isolated queries. (Amazon, OpenAI, and Microsoft are experimenting with similar AI shopping tools.)

The stock is up nearly 1% again in premarket trading today. While Microsoft and Apple have both crossed $4 trillion in the past, they’ve since dipped below it, leaving Google and Nvidia as the only companies currently valued above the threshold.

Jon Keegan21h

Meta reportedly plans to cut about 10% of employees in Reality Labs metaverse business

Meta is planning to cut roughly 10% of its Reality Labs employees, according to a report from The New York Times. The division is home to products related to the namesake of the company — the metaverse — which includes virtual and augmented reality glasses and headsets. Employees working on the metaverse are the target of the cuts, per the report.

Reality Labs has been bleeding cash and struggling to build significant revenue, racking up losses of around $70 billion since the company started reporting its numbers in 2020. Other than Meta Ray-Ban glasses, the group’s products have not been popular with consumers, and the idea of the metaverse that CEO Mark Zuckerberg evangelized never took off.

The company has since pivoted to a focus on building AI “superintelligence.”

Meta Plans to Cut 10% to 15% of Employees in Reality Labs Business

The company has since pivoted to a focus on building AI “superintelligence.”

Rani Molla22h

Tesla’s Elon Musk says AI deal with Apple gives Google “unreasonable concentration of power”

Apple has selected Google’s Gemini AI model to power the next generation of Siri — and Tesla and xAI CEO Elon Musk is not pleased. Responding on X to Google’s announcement, Musk wrote that the deal “seems like an unreasonable concentration of power for Google,” pointing to the company’s control of Android and Chrome.

This seems like an unreasonable concentration of power for Google, given that the also have Android and Chrome
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 12, 2026

Musk has previously sued Apple, accusing the company of unfairly favoring OpenAI’s ChatGPT — with which Apple also has a more limited AI partnership — in its App Store. Musk’s xAI, which works closely with Tesla, develops a competing AI model, Grok. Long considered the AI front-runner, OpenAI, which was also in the running to power Siri, has been facing increased competition from Google.

In a monopoly case last September, a judge ruled that agreements such as Apple’s deal to preload Google Search on Safari were permissible as long as they were not exclusive — a decision that may have helped clear the path for the companies’ new multiyear AI partnership.

Jon Keegan1/12/26

Apple selects Google’s Gemini to power Siri, CNBC reports

Apple has selected Google’s Gemini model as part of a multiyear partnership to power its revamped, AI-powered Siri, set to launch this year.

Per a statement seen by CNBC, Apple said: “After careful evaluation, we determined that Google’s technology provides the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation Models and we’re excited about the innovative new experiences it will unlock for our users.”

Apple first announced a revamped AI Siri back in June 2024 but failed to execute on many of its promises of personalized features and deep system integration. The newest iteration of Siri was expected this spring. Bloomberg previously reported that Apple plans to pay Google $1 billion a year to use its AI model to power Siri.

With this news, the iPhone maker has ticked one of the four boxes that Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives said would be integral to the stock’s success in 2026.

“This is what the Street has been waiting for with the elephant in the room for Cupertino revolving around its invisible AI strategy,” Ives wrote in a follow-up note, calling the move a “major validation moment for Google as a premier foundation model and for Apple as a stepping stone to accelerate its AI strategy into 2026 and beyond.”

Google, which has been riding high on the the stellar reception of its latest Gemini model, briefly notched a $4 trillion market cap on the news. Apple hit the notable milestone in 2025 but has since fallen and is currently worth $3.8 trillion.

Apple picks Google's Gemini to run AI-powered Siri coming this year

With this news, the iPhone maker has ticked one of the four boxes that Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives said would be integral to the stock’s success in 2026.

850M

Rani Molla1/12/26

Apple’s App Store saw an average of 850 million weekly active users at the end of 2025, up from 813 million last June, underscoring the sheer scale of its Services business even as hardware growth has slowed. The company highlighted the milestone in a year-end Services roundup, noting record App Store traffic across major markets including the US, China, India, and Japan.

Apple takes a cut of most digital transactions that run through its App Store payment system, making growth there a key driver of its increasingly important Services segment.

Apple also indicated record Apple TV viewership and Apple Music listenership, but did not disclose specific figures.