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Wall Street Banks Plan to Sell Billions in Stock for AI Investments
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In Short: Wall Street banks are preparing to sell billions of dollars in stock to fund artificial intelligence (AI) investments, as higher interest rates make borrowing more expensive.
Wall Street banks are gearing up to sell billions of dollars in stock to fund artificial intelligence (AI) investments, as higher interest rates make borrowing more expensive.
Tech firms have borrowed huge sums over the past year for AI spending, but Wall Street now expects that higher interest rates mean the likes of Meta will sell billions of dollars in stock to fund the next round of building, putting pressure on share prices by increasing the number of shares outstanding.
According to Businessday, Meta Platforms, one of the hyperscalers spending billions to build data centers and other infrastructure supporting the AI boom, said it would issue a new class of shares that will help it raise funds.
In a filing, Meta said it may need to raise hundreds of billions of dollars over several years to fund its AI plans, starting as soon as this fall.
The company will create non-voting Class C shares that CEO Mark Zuckerberg can sell to raise cash while keeping his voting power, allowing him to access about $20 billion to pay a tax bill, depending on the share price when he sells.
Zuckerberg has struck an eight-year residency deal with Meta as California's proposed billionaire wealth tax threatens to cost him billions.
The deal, struck on Wednesday, gives Zuckerberg new shares in Meta that he can sell to cover a potential tax liability estimated at billions of dollars.
Zuckerberg can sell 20% of the Class C shares he receives right away, equal to about 10% of his total economic stake in Meta, with another 2.5% becoming available to sell each quarter as long as he stays in a full-time leadership role.
In return, the company will create non-voting Class C shares that Zuckerberg can sell to raise cash while keeping his voting power.
Zuckerberg has threatened to leave the state if the billionaire tax passes, as he would face a tax bill of billions of dollars.
Tech giants like Alphabet and Microsoft are also pouring billions of dollars into the infrastructure needed to support the growing AI industry.
Alphabet spent approximately $51.4 billion on capital expenditures during the third quarter, more than double the amount spent a year earlier, with much of the investment directed toward technical infrastructure supporting its AI and cloud businesses.
Background
Wall Street banks are preparing to sell billions of dollars in stock to fund artificial intelligence (AI) investments, as higher interest rates make borrowing more expensive.
What's confirmed
- Banks hand out billions in sustainability-linked loans to palm oil companies, despite deforestation links, as voluntary standards mean companies are marking their own homework on environmental and human rights impacts Banks provide billions in "sustainable" loans to deforestation-linked palm oil firms In March 2026, one of the world’s largest palm oil producers, Wilmar International, notified investors that one of its officials had been sentenced to six-years in prison for bribing judges that had previously acquitted one of its subsidiaries – the Wilmar Group – of corruption charges.
- The Meta CEO has invested billions of dollars in recent years in the development of new artificial intelligence models, and the company is now moving on to the next stage: integrating them into products and services that will be widely used.
- Saying the president was "grasping at straws," a federal judge on Saturday threw out Donald Trump's $10 billion lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal and media mogul Rupert Murdoch over a story reporting on his ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
What's still developing
- Joining the ensemble are Malin Akerman ( The Hunting Wives, Billions ) as “Aunt Stacy”, Megan Follows ( Buried in Barstow ) as “Cheryl”, Nadine Bhabha ( Heated Rivalry, Slo Pitch ) as “Farah”, and Matias Lucas ( The Order ) as “Carter” in the Prince Edward Island-set contemporary romance.
- It describes the billions that American, Delta and United borrowed against their frequent flyer programs, acting as though Spirit didn’t do the same thing on more than one occasion.
- It also announced a surprise plan to sell billions of pounds in UK government bonds back to the Treasury to avoid fuelling turbulence in the gilt market, a decision that could have significant consequences for the public finances before next month’s budget.
- Trump threatens Bombardier with a US sales ban despite the Canadian jetmaker employing thousands of Americans and spending billions with US suppliers.
- The majority ($400 million) of these SLL commitments in this period were given to Wilmar, which has received sustainability-linked loan backing from banks such as UK-based Standard Chartered, Hong-Kong domiciled Bank of East Asia,and Malaysia-based Maybank, our analysis finds.
- Our new analysis finds that sustainability-linked loans are a lucrative business, with over 100 banks participating in sustainability-linked loan deals worth $31 billion involving companies operating in the palm oil sector in Indonesia between 2018-2025.
- Our analysis reveals how the companies in this study have leveraged their deforestation-free policies and sustainable messaging in recent years to generate billions of dollars in sustainable financing from the world’s largest banks.
- During the same period (2022-2025), Wilmar International and Musim Mas Group received a combined half a billion dollars ($566 million) in sustainability-linked loan (SLL) commitments across multiple deals.
- We’ve helped thousands of clients file asbestos claims, recovering billions of dollars on their behalf.
- “One of Russia’s key oil industry facilities and the aggressor’s logistics facility were hit. These are billions of dollars that sustain the war machine. The systems used included FP-1, RZ-100, MICH-2000, Palianytsia, Vendetta, Liutyi, Bars, Flamingo, Sichen and Pelican,” he said.
- To keep workers and businesses afloat during shutdowns, the government shoveled billions of dollars in emergency “loans” to individuals in the form of the Paycheck Protection Program, the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program, and others.
- RELATED: Netflix Assembles YA Stars Past, Present & Future For End Of Summer Bash Event To Reassert Presence In The Genre Akerman was most recently seen in the Netflix series The Hunting Wives playing “Margo Banks”.