Paid social: Meta could be trying a new business model in Europe

9/3/23 8:00PM

Paid social‍

‍Meta is considering introducing paid versions of Facebook and Instagram for European users, giving them access to endless ad-free scrolling. The move is largely in response to the bloc’s increasingly stringent policies on data collection, which has limited the company's ability to deliver targeted advertisements in the region — you know, the slightly creepy ones that crop up on your feed with the exact thing you were browsing for the other day.

A paid subscription tier would be a huge departure from Meta’s hyper-efficient core business — a $110bn+ advertising monolith that's leaps ahead of its rivals in extracting value from users. Despite being a free service, Facebook alone rakes in nearly $18 every single month for each one of its US & Canadian users — substantially more than the $10-15 a month you might pay for services like Netflix, Spotify or Amazon Prime.

‍Adios and adieu, ads

‍If it is somewhat forced to experiment with a new business model, Europe is arguably the safest place for Meta to try one. At just over 400 million monthly active users, the region is substantially smaller than Facebook’s Asia-Pacific and Rest of the World user bases, of 1.35 billion and 1 billion, respectively. Furthermore, European users are far less lucrative than their American counterparts, contributing on average less than a third of what a typical American user adds to Facebook's revenue.

Convincing those European users to part ways with ~$6 a month to look at memes, vacation pictures and news headlines might be a tough ask though, even for the masters of monetization at Meta.

Rani Molla13m

London’s robotaxi war is “months” away as Uber opens waitlist to battle Alphabet’s Waymo

Starting today, Uber users in London can join an in-app waitlist to be matched with a self-driving vehicle, with a commercial launch planned for the "coming months." Riders who opt in could be picked up by a Ford Mustang Mach-E powered by UK-based AI startup Wayve. The rides will initially operate with a human safety driver and will cost the same as an UberX, Uber Electric, or Uber Comfort ride.

The move turns London into the next ground zero for a robotaxi showdown, pitting Uber against its US partner, Alphabet's Waymo. While the two companies cooperate stateside — allowing users to hail Waymo rides via the Uber app in Phoenix, Austin, and Atlanta — they are locked in a turf war abroad. Uber is hedging its bets to own the future of ride-hailing, with more than 30 AV partnerships around the world and plans to roll out Wayve-powered robotaxis across 10 global markets.

Waymo, which is available in 11 US markets, is also aggressively pushing its own international expansion and has already deployed about 100 autonomous Jaguars for testing on London streets ahead of a planned commercial launch this year. With the UK fast-tracking its autonomous vehicle regulations, London is set to be the ultimate proving ground to see if Uber’s strategy of funding Waymo's rivals can beat Alphabet's in-house tech.

Jon Keegan6/5/26

FT: Meta considering “tens of billions” in new capital to fund AI

Just days after Google announced a monster $85 billion upsized equity raise, the extremely profitable Meta is seeking to sell “tens of billions of dollars” in stock, according to a new report from the Financial Times.

Meta is planning on spending between $125 billion and $145 billion on AI capital expenditure this year alone.

Shares dropped more than 5% on the news.

Meta weighs big equity raising after blockbuster Google deal

Rani Molla

6/5/26

Meta is supercharging its subscription businesses

The free-app giant never really cared about recurring revenue. Now, it’s launching paid plans for all sorts of stuff.

Jon Keegan6/5/26

FT: Anthropic staff helping the NSA use Mythos for offensive cyberattacks

Anthropic’s Mythos AI model was deemed too dangerous to release to the public, with the company citing its ability to orchestrate novel cyberattacks.

And that’s just what the National Security Agency is doing, with the help of Anthropic staff embedded at the agency, according to a report from the Financial Times.

Only a small number of companies and US allies have been given access to the advanced model, which means America’s adversaries have not had the chance to shore up their defenses against the AI model’s new offensive capabilities.

The arrangement is especially unusual as the Pentagon has deemed Anthropic’s AI a national security supply chain risk — effectively blacklisting it for defense work — in response to the company’s refusal to allow its technology to be used for any legal application, which could include autonomous killing or mass surveillance. Anthropic is currently suing the US government to fight the determination.

US National Security Agency using Anthropic’s Mythos for cyber attacks

Rani Molla6/5/26

Longtime Tesla bear JPMorgan upgraded Tesla and raised its price target to $475 from $145

For more than a decade, JPMorgan was Wall Street’s most stubborn Tesla skeptic, anchored by auto analyst Ryan Brinkman’s strict focus on traditional car fundamentals and near-term delivery numbers.

But JPM recently handed coverage of the stock to a new analyst, Rajat Gupta, who is throwing that playbook out the window. In a note Friday, the firm upgraded Tesla to “neutral” from “underweight” and raised its price target 228% to $475 from $145. (The analyst consensus on FactSet is $403.) Instead of focusing on the company’s struggling vehicle business, the new analyst is orienting himself more toward Tesla’s idea of the future, now modeling Tesla’s physical AI and robotaxi fleets all the way out to the year 2040.

Here are the main reasons for the capitulation:

Looking past the car lot: Gupta argues that Tesla “is at the forefront of physical AI, entering uncharted TAMs” and therefore “deserves the benefit of the doubt to be valued on LT earnings potential” rather than near-term speed bumps.
Unmatched vertical integration: Tesla’s control over everything from battery cells to custom silicon gives it a massive moat. JPM notes this starting point advantage is “unmatched at an industrial level scale” and “still somewhat under-appreciated and misunderstood.”
The AWS flywheel effect: Deploying Optimus robots inside its own factories “should not only lower COGS for the base automotive business, but more importantly, help validate the product at an industrial scale.” Gupta called it “a classic flywheel effect, somewhat analogous to AWS and Kiva at AMZN.”

For Tesla bulls who have argued for years that this is an AI company and not a carmaker, JPM’s sudden $3.9 trillion valuation model is the ultimate validation.