Meta’s $18 billion nationwide settlement with state attorneys general forced nearly $10 billion in additional costs for the company during its third quarter in 2026, missing Wall Street expectations on per-share earnings Wednesday even as its quarterly revenue was up 28%.
The company’s revenue for the quarter hit $64.6 billion, up 26%, while its net income was $9.86 billion, up 264%. Its earnings per share hit $3.83. Analysts polled by LSEG Data & Analytics expected the company’s revenue to hit $63.4 billion and earnings per share of $5.46.
Wall Street analysts didn’t seem to mind the lower EPS, however, as its share price was up 5% after market close. The company also unveiled plans to create a new class of non-voting Class C common stock starting in January.
“We hit major milestones this quarter toward delivering personal superintelligence for everyone – including launching Muse and Muse Wonder, our first frontier model,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement. “Our investments are paying off, the core business is strong, and we’re seeing velocity across the board.”
The earnings report came hours after a New Mexico state judge ordered Meta to pay $25 billion after a jury found the company liable last month for deceiving users about Facebook‘s data privacy and content moderation policies. That ruling came after Meta reached an $18 billion settlement with 52 state attorneys general in August over claims that it designed Instagram with addictive features, knowingly exposed young users to serious mental harms, and intentionally misled the public about the safety of its platforms, among other claims.
The settlement saw Meta’s costs for the quarter balloon to $51.6 billion. The company said in its earnings release that its operating income would have jumped from $12.98 billion to $22.88 billion — had it not had $9.89 billion in costs from the settlement.
Meta’s third quarter saw the company effectively relaunch its AI efforts, including the introduction of its AI agent Muse, a Muse-infused gadget and a new suite of Meta-branded eyeglasses.
“I am proud of what we are building,” Zuckerberg said during the company’s earnings call on Wednesday. “People have all kinds of different opinions about the future, but at Meta, we believe that the future is for everyone and that putting power in people’s hands is how we get there. I think that this matters. There needs to be a company out there that represents these ideas, but this isn’t just about ideas; it’s also about execution.”
Meta introduced Muse last month, touting the agent as “the world’s first personal AI agent built for everyone.” The agent took center stage at its Meta Connect event last month, where it was given both an animated character to represent it and an infusion into several of the company’s software and hardware offerings. During the company’s earnings call, Zuckerberg said more than 10 million people in the U.S. and Canada have set up Muse agents, and 25% of those who set up agents use Muse daily. Its most common use cases include shopping, personal productivity and creativity, chief financial office Susan Li revealed.
“We want to help every person have an extremely capable personal agent that understands your goals and can help you achieve them and improve your life in whatever ways you want, whether that’s improving your relationships, helping you save time, save money, build a business, create new things, or anything else that you can dream of,” Zuckerberg said. “Muse is the product form of this vision. So now we have the foundational technology in place to deliver this. There is still a lot of work ahead, but our initial position is very strong.”
AI remained a hot topic throughout the earnings call, with analysts peppering Zuckerberg and Li with questions about the company’s AI strategy. Meta has made enterprise and subscriptions pillars of its AI focus, the executives shared, while also building out new components of its AI products.
“The core experience across our apps and Meta AI will remain free, while subscriptions offer more specialized capabilities and expanded AI usage,” Li said. “And beyond monetizing engagement across our existing services, we are building new experiences and revenue streams around consumer agents.”
Ultimately, the goal is to produce some level of a “personal superintelligence,” a company ethos Zuckerberg debuted in an essay last year and reiterated repeatedly on the call Wednesday as Meta aims to create a large-scale “Muse network.”
“We believe in putting the power of personal superintelligence in everyone’s hands,” he said. “We believe that that is the path to ensuring a positive future for everyone, with individual empowerment as the source of prosperity and balance of power as the foundation for safety. On a values level, we believe that delivering this capability widely is the best thing that we can be doing. This is also our strategy because we think that billions of muses in a network at scale will be able to get more done for people and businesses by working together.”
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