Meta's market capitalization surged past $1 trillion during Wednesday's intraday trading, registering a more than 2% increase to reach approximately $396 per share amid a record-breaking rally.
This milestone, last achieved in 2021 with a peak near $1.1 trillion in September, follows Meta's impressive almost 200% stock gain in the previous year, according to a report from CNBC.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg's cost-cutting measures, leading to over 20,000 job cuts, contributed to this massive growth. Moreover, Zuckerberg said last week that Meta would acquire 350,000 H100 graphics cards from Nvidia by year's end, accounting for "almost 600k H100 equivalents of compute." The move indicates that the corporation is investing billions in AI.
Meta is set to report fiscal fourth-quarter earnings on February 1.
(Photo : JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty Images)
Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks during the Meta Connect event at Meta headquarters in Menlo Park, California, on September 27, 2023.
Meta's Response to DMA
The news comes after Meta announces its move to address the forthcoming EU Digital Markets Act (DMA), Meta has allowed EU users to unlink Instagram, Facebook, and other Meta services. The shift covers the EU, the European Economic Area, and Switzerland.
EU users can now use Meta services without cross-platform information sharing, according to The Verge. Facebook Messenger can function as a standalone service without a Facebook account, and users can unlink previously linked Facebook and Instagram accounts. However, this reduces data linkage and limits functionalities, particularly in services like Facebook Marketplace and Facebook Gaming. These adjustments align with industry trends, as Google recently announced a similar data-sharing discontinuation between services in response to the DMA. The DMA, effective March 6th, designates Meta and Google's parent company, Alphabet, as "gatekeepers."
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In a recent statement, Tim Lamb, Director of Competition and Regulatory at Meta, expressed Meta's commitment to supporting the DMA and its objective to foster competition and fairness in digital markets. He highlighted Meta's dedication to ensuring compliance with the DMA for Meta's products in the European Union while delivering value to users. To achieve this, Meta has formed a substantial cross-functional team, comprising senior employees from various global locations and spanning across Meta's "entire family of apps."
Ex-Employee: Meta Fails to Protect Young Users
In a separate development, a former Meta official blasted the company for its weak efforts to safeguard minors on its platform. A whistleblower, Arturo Béjar, a former senior engineer at Meta, criticizes the company's weak effforts to protect children, especially following the death of Molly Russell.
Béjar argues that Meta already has the capabilities to shield teenagers from harmful content. Research on Instagram users conducted by Béjar reveals that 8.4% of 13- to 15-year-olds encountered self-harm or threats of self-harm in the past week, according to a report from The Guardian.
Meta could have protected underage users from unsafe information if it had learned from Molly Russell's circumstances, according to Béjar. In 2017, 14-year-old Molly Russell killed herself after watching disturbing online content linked to suicide, self-harm, depression, and anxiety.
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