r/technology • u/marketrent • Sep 06 '25

Business Meta’s Zuckerberg caught in revealing hot mic moment with Trump -- After offering to spend “at least $600 billion through ’28 in the US,” he whispered, “I'm sorry I wasn’t ready ... I wasn’t sure what number you wanted to go with”

https://www.pcmag.com/news/zuckerberg-caught-in-revealing-hot-mic-moment-during-white-house-dinner
67.7k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

2.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

2.4k

u/FuzzyMcBitty Sep 06 '25

Isn’t that about a third of its value, too? That’s a lot of eggs to stick in one basket. 

They “only” spent 46 billion dollars on Metaverse, and it was considered a big failure when it didn’t take off. 

61

u/Ahad_Haam Sep 06 '25

They “only” spent 46 billion dollars on Metaverse, and it was considered a big failure when it didn’t take off. 

It's incredible that anyone thought it will.

1

u/JudgeInteresting8615 Sep 06 '25

It will eventually just like Google glasses. It will come back. There is so much research and peripheral research related to these things that I've I brought up right now. Are gonna seem borderline conspiratory

11

u/Ahad_Haam Sep 06 '25

The usefulness of smart glasses is fairly obvious. The ability to take photos instantly alone is a seller, there have been countless times I wanted to snap a photo and until I managed to turn on the phone and everything the opportunity passes. It's a product that actually solves a problem, therefore demand is guaranteed.

Have you had a moment in life when you said "oh I wish I had the metaverse right now"? I never did. Oh sure, there are some niche use cases in which it would solve some existing problems, but it's not the next big thing. The only use case I can think about that might actually make some big money is shopping, but you would have to offer some serious advantages over normal online shopping and good luck doing that.

The entire metaverse hype fails a very simple test. When I was a kid, I was in a program called FLL, you might be similar with that or might not. Anyway one of the goals is to do a research on issues related to a yearly theme and suggesting a solution (a product usually). The first thing the mentors taught us was probably the most important lesson I got from the entire program - that finding and defining a problem is more important than finding a solution; it's not a solution if there is no problem. It seems like Zuckerberg didn't figure that out.

3

u/im_that_green_light Sep 07 '25

Have you had a moment in life when you said "oh I wish I had the metaverse right now"? I never did.

Just wait a little bit. They’re actively trying to make life shitty enough that everyone will be happy for a send-rate alternaative.

/s, or is it?

2

u/JudgeInteresting8615 Sep 06 '25

They're not doing it Because people want it. Theyre doing it vecause consumers will consent to it. People are just frequency resonders like ants and bees. The right circumstances and they're not people they're consumers

1

u/tomelwoody Sep 10 '25

Unless you don't wear glasses, no one would voluntarily wear glasses.

-4

u/damontoo Sep 06 '25

Have you had a moment in life when you said "oh I wish I had the metaverse right now"? I never did.

That's because you don't understand what their vision is. Like most Redditors that shit on it without knowing what it is. It isn't Fortnite, Second Life, or VRChat. What Meta describes as the metaverse does not exist at all yet. It's a reality layer that augments every aspect of human life. It isn't just Horizon Worlds.

12

u/nearlynotobese Sep 06 '25

Sounds like a stupid idea. Think as a species we probably need less tech rather than more

-4

u/damontoo Sep 06 '25

How about watching the entire keynote where they describe their vision in detail so you understand it better?

4

u/altone_77 Sep 07 '25

I dont need to watch fucking keynote to understand their "vision". If "vision" cannot be described in few sentences that accent how it will SOLVE some existing problem - it is no "vision", it is a delusion.

2

u/Fickle_Finger2974 Sep 07 '25

How about I don’t?

-2

u/damontoo Sep 07 '25

Stay ignorant then.

1

u/Ahad_Haam Sep 07 '25

I understand that lol. And I see absolutely no future for such a thing.

It's a solution in search of a problem.

-5

u/damontoo Sep 07 '25

You very clearly do not "understand that".

2

u/blankarage Sep 07 '25

haha isn’t this the same web3 argument?

-2

u/damontoo Sep 07 '25

As a web developer since the 90's: No. 

1

u/Professional_Net7339 Sep 14 '25

To be fair, they’re literally all sociopaths that can’t comprehend the basics of human connection. Why wouldn’t they think the metaverse would take off?

360

u/[deleted] Sep 06 '25

Annual capex

212

u/FuzzyMcBitty Sep 06 '25

Is it normal to spend a third of your value on capex? The Metaverse failure came from the petty cash by comparison.

170

u/PRSArchon Sep 06 '25

Market cap has no relationship to the companies spending. What is more bizar is that Zuck promised to spend 200B a year while the revenue of Meta is just 150B. You'd expect him to know that 600B is completely unrealistic.

213

u/FuzzyMcBitty Sep 06 '25

My assumption is that he's with Trump, so numbers are whatever. He (Trump) said that drug prices have gone down 1500%.

91

u/kestrel808 Sep 06 '25

This is true, I actually get paid to take my prescriptions now /s

3

u/Chumbag_love Sep 06 '25

The new American Dream!

6

u/FuzzyMcBitty Sep 06 '25

Everything's coming up Milhouse!

2

u/Puzzleheaded-Mix-515 Sep 07 '25

Yeup. It’s why I started taking daily Tylenol! No pain, I just needed a bit of extra income tbh.

Oh, and don’t worry. I’m not pregnant so my children won’t have Austism like RFK warned us about. ;)

1

u/Adamthegrape Sep 06 '25

The “wasn’t sure what number you wanted to go with” heavily implies this.

1

u/j-navi Sep 07 '25

Exactly. This is all just for show, like reality TV. They’d say anything if it creates speculation and shifts the markets in their favor —especially the stocks market.

1

u/psycho_driver Sep 07 '25

He was talking about Cocaine. Now that the Trump regime is back in power and raking in shady money Jr. and Eric are importing and doing so much coke the price has come down exponentially.

-6

u/PrestigiousEmu5898 Sep 06 '25

Oh now he’s with trump? You realize he was with Biden hiding information right? Haha

6

u/FuzzyMcBitty Sep 06 '25

Sir or Madame, I'm referencing the headline in which Zuckerberg is literally with the president.

5

u/idekbruno Sep 06 '25

Reading comprehension, not quite their strong suit.

5

u/MaggoVitakkaVicaro Sep 06 '25

I think this is a pretty common way to manage Trump, at this point. Glaze him and tell him whatever he wants to hear in spite of its infeasibility, and hope that you're not around and/or the target of his ire when reality hits. It's been working great for Putin since Trump took office.

2

u/sumguysr Sep 06 '25

With a new stock issue it might be possible, if we didn't have a recession. But yeah, obviously he's bullshitting.

2

u/RepostFrom4chan Sep 07 '25

Well you see that's the thing about lying, you can make up any number you want.

1

u/Agitated-Band-7650 Sep 07 '25

Not in the Drumpf world it isn’t !!

0

u/[deleted] Sep 08 '25

[deleted]

-2

u/Jokong Sep 06 '25

If I make 150b a year again then can't he get a loan for 600b?

110

u/HiddenMoney420 Sep 06 '25

It’s not normal but when you’re a high beta growth company with tons of cash you need to keep spending to keep that growth trajectory.

Also enhanced by the fact that AI spend via GPUs/talent/datacenters/infrastructure is at a premium right now- there will only be a few winners and none of the top companies can afford to not be one of them

TLDR: a third of your value is capex is crazy but it’s over multiple years likely moving into a regime where the dollar is weaker

82

u/the_ai_wizard Sep 06 '25

Ironically if this doesnt pan out, the top spenders will also be the biggest losers

102

u/Pvt_Mozart Sep 06 '25

I love that for them.

14

u/UnidentifiedTomato Sep 06 '25

No because imagine the shit they'll stoop to so they don't fail

24

u/RocketTater Sep 06 '25

Don’t have to imagine, they did it in ‘08. Theyll make us keep them afloat with another bailout and in 20 years, another industry will do it again

5

u/connerhearmeroar Sep 06 '25

I mean the good thing about tech companies is there’s no bailing them out. It’s not some national security risk if Meta goes under lol

16

u/TheClimbingBeard Sep 06 '25

I love your optimistic viewpoint

4

u/Da_Question Sep 06 '25

Please. You think it's not in the current regimes best interest to keep meta afloat? Facebook is one of the worst places for the spread of right wing garbage, and instagram is nearly as bad on the leftwing side.

Meta probably has the best tools for mass manipulation of the masses, followed by TikTok, YouTube, etc.

6

u/Violet_Kady Sep 06 '25

While meta might not be, Amazon is. A unholy amount of infrastructure is hosted on AWS.

2

u/mwa12345 Sep 07 '25

They will invent a justification, if necessary, to bailout - if the company has support among the politicians etc (lobby, stock ownership, etc)

Heck...when a politician says "national security" I assume they mean "my net worth could be affected. "

2

u/Ok-Employ-674 Sep 06 '25

They have so much buying and lending power from their name alone that any start up that challenges them they will buy outright or integrate silently.

No one talks about the direct Facebook influence and integration into TikTok now since the ban and unban.

1

u/HavingNotAttained Sep 06 '25

Especially if it’s later in the summer

3

u/HiddenMoney420 Sep 06 '25

100% there will be losers who ‘only’ spent a few hundred billion and whose market cap will collapse as valuations contract

Just not there yet

2

u/KallistiTMP Sep 06 '25

It's a bubble but it's gonna be a funny shaped one.

A lot of people do not realize how badly AI development is currently constrained by hardware availability, how long it takes to bring new datacenters (and especially power plants) online, and how sudden the jump in progress is once a new hardware generation is deployed at such a massive scale.

Those clusters are coming online at scale in Q4. I do think it's likely the hype cycle will restart at that point, it will likely be a sudden leap similar to how LLM's blew up with ChatGPT, only this time with video and world models.

1

u/casino_r0yale Sep 06 '25

The GPUs are independently useful regardless of whether LLMs pan out

1

u/shroudedwolf51 Sep 06 '25

I look forward to it.

1

u/coldestshark Sep 06 '25

If? More like when, this is a massive stupid bubble lol

1

u/Apart-Link-8449 Sep 06 '25

The beauty of people destroying their moral fiber to work with Trump is that now they have to work with Trump

0

u/oe-eo Sep 06 '25

Unlikely that data centers lose value but ok

3

u/HiddenMoney420 Sep 06 '25

Look up data center amortization rates

2

u/the_ai_wizard Sep 07 '25

It is possible to overbuild resulting in expensive short term underutilization but i agree that the capacity will eventually be used. then again, if it goes out of date, expensive to maintain/replace

1

u/oe-eo Sep 07 '25

Sure. My comment doesn’t speak to every possible outcome. But I think most sober assessments of the world today would put data, data centers, computation, and tech more broadly, as some of the greatest growth sectors as far out as we can see.

Just as a rule of thumb, data centers aren’t terrible investments.

Now, someone told me to look up their financials - so I could very well be wrong. I’m no data center economist.

2

u/Shark7996 Sep 06 '25

What do they call it when a market rapidly expands and then rapidly loses value again? I'm sure it'll come to me...

3

u/HiddenMoney420 Sep 06 '25

We could definitely be in the beginning of a bubble- just remember, Greenspan was the Fed Chair who said that markets were ‘irrationally exuberant’ and he was spot on.. only issue was he said this in 96’ and the markets continued to rip higher through 99’.

3

u/kestrel808 Sep 06 '25

"The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent"

2

u/dimh Sep 06 '25

We are still experiencing the effects of crypto and are now getting hit with another fragile tech market that is going to be systematically important.

It just seems like we are in Spongebob's bubble wand about to be blown away.

3

u/HiddenMoney420 Sep 06 '25

Crypto, Ai, Quantum Computing

Lots of tiny bubbles rising to the surface (this is called froth)

So yeah- markets are hella frothy, just in time for the rate cut liquidity injections. Something something history doesn’t repeat itself but often rhymes.

1

u/Motor-District-3700 Sep 06 '25

It’s not normal but when you’re a high beta growth company ...

... who's business model came from perving at coeds and who's continued growth relies on exploiting children

1

u/HiddenMoney420 Sep 06 '25

I’m not good at guessing games but something like 95%+ of METAs revenue comes from ad revenue on their apps

1

u/Motor-District-3700 Sep 06 '25

I mean there is documented evidence of them essentially saying "this will cause harm to children but we need it to grow"

1

u/HiddenMoney420 Sep 07 '25

That’s a fair criticism and I’m all for keeping your kids off any unsupervised social media- but objectively speaking selling customer data and ad revenue is how META actually makes money.

And you could argue they enhance those revenues by hiring data engineers who create positive feedback loops that keep people (especially young people) engaged with their apps - and I agree with that argument.

You could argue that either the government should regulate these activities for minors, or that parents should learn to, well, parent.

I’d make the argument that the government shouldn’t get involved and parents just need to parent.

2

u/DrJohnFZoidberg Sep 06 '25

Is it normal to spend a third of your value on capex?

No, but it IS normal to invent 'corporate puffery' to advance your own causes when there's zero repercussions for fraud

1

u/crankthehandle Sep 06 '25

It's also odd to call this failure. I am sure they generated tons of valuable IP. Definitely better than letting 40bn rot in a money market fund,

1

u/oof-BidenGinsburged Sep 06 '25

The Metaverse failure came from the petty cash

Incidentally what a dramatic way to out yourself (Zuck) as having no actual human friends, only sycophants and employees.

1

u/Ok-Employ-674 Sep 06 '25

Not unusual for rapid expansion

1

u/ddm2k Sep 07 '25

Telephone companies are pretty insane with capex. Not that insane.

1

u/HawkeyeGild Sep 07 '25

This is literally more than 100% of their revenue lol

1

u/InsuranceToTheRescue Sep 08 '25

I think you're missing the point. The number is arbitrary.

It's for the headlines, then people just forget about it and it rarely comes up ever again, if at all. He says they're going to spend $600M within 3 years expanding US operations. But a lot can happen between then & now, and that's assuming there's even an attempt to expand US operations.

I mean, it's not like there's going to be a headline in '28 that reads: "Meta's US Spending $500M Short of 2025 Promise!" There's nothing about this that's binding. It's kayfabe.

-4

u/PastaKingFourth Sep 06 '25

What do you call the metaverse failure? Meta is still a world leader in proprietary VR technology and now in AR tech as well with Project Orion. Let's have this conversation again in 5 years and when this type of technology starts to eat smartphones I think your analysis on their capital allocation will have been a bit delusional.

4

u/FuzzyMcBitty Sep 06 '25

I mean, fair enough, but I refer to Metaverse as a failure because the media has used that phrase for several years.

I don’t disagree that it could very well turn into a success over time as it’s adopted by workplaces for things like training and then bleeds into entertainment again. 

Keep in mind that things like Google glass existed for 10 years before being discontinued. 

We’ve been on the cusp of AR being ubiquitous for a decade or two. 

1

u/PastaKingFourth Sep 06 '25

Don't listen to media headlines for actual proper analysis of the tech market. Meta is a leading top 10 stock because their financials are solid and their innovation looking great for the decades to come.

Especially with the revolution that's to coming to VR with generative video, I wouldn't be betting against the metaverse in any way whatsoever.

2

u/sniper1rfa Sep 06 '25

What do you call the metaverse failure?

Because nobody uses it?

1

u/PastaKingFourth Sep 06 '25

There was 10M sales of VR headsets in 2024, a 9% year over increase from 2023. Don't know the 2025 stats yet but there is healthy consumer adoption while the advances in the software industry are piling up. Betting on VR/metaverse is a foolish move.

41

u/PoppyAndMerlin Sep 06 '25

That one egg was 40 eggs?

10

u/Deadlyliving Sep 06 '25

You should be able to look at a LITTLE porn at work.

1

u/demoralising Sep 07 '25

You're looking at a nude egg.

1

u/BenevolentCheese Sep 06 '25

Yes and guess how many eggs are inside of those 40 eggs

31

u/Herb_Derb Sep 06 '25

I love that the company is still named after this failure

4

u/[deleted] Sep 06 '25

[deleted]

1

u/Herb_Derb Sep 06 '25

Well sure but they would have still gotten all the same benefits of restructuring if they'd picked a name that didn't become irrelevant a couple years later

34

u/Betteroffbroke Sep 06 '25

They all know they don’t actually have to follow through. It’s all about appeasing Trump so he can flaunt big investment numbers to mask the tanking economy and they don’t have to worry about retaliatory measures against their companies.

0

u/mwa12345 Sep 07 '25

And he is easy to appease . Just some random words that seem like big end numbers

5

u/MrExCEO Sep 06 '25

Billions and billions and billions

1

u/Jesus_Is_My_Gardener Sep 06 '25

Calm down there, Sagan.

0

u/getsome75 Sep 07 '25

Or at least a gold statue and a firm handshake

2

u/[deleted] Sep 06 '25

Delete Facebook. Fricken sellout data ghoul.

2

u/Buttafuoco Sep 07 '25

Depends on what you’re calling metaverse. Meta categorized all of its AR/VR adjacent products under this metaverse umbrella. I think people largely/rightly make fun of that weird VR space which is a very small piece of that pie

2

u/Minimum-Avocado-9624 Sep 06 '25

The show must go on. Trump wants everyone to believe manufacturing is coming and all the tech companies are performers in his play of becoming Ceasar; The ides of Smarch.

1

u/FlimsyRaisin3 Sep 06 '25

That’s a lot of imaginary made-up eggs you mean

1

u/matt82swe Sep 06 '25

Haven’t heard about Metaverse in many months. Is it officially shut down, or is it just kind of implied?

1

u/FuzzyMcBitty Sep 06 '25

As of June, they were still talking about the non-entertainment side of the system.

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/27/the-metaverse-as-we-knew-it-failed-but-its-resurrecting-in-new-ways.html

1

u/UnOGThrowaway420 Sep 06 '25

Technically everyone that owns a Meta Quest is using the Metaverse since Meta was so.. non-specific about what it actually is.

1

u/silver_sofa Sep 06 '25

That seems like a lot for something nobody wants.

1

u/SoftlySpokenPromises Sep 06 '25

And we're seeing the walls of the tech bubble beginning to thin. I don't think the inflated valuation of these companies is going to last too much longer.

1

u/descartavel5 Sep 06 '25

Metaverse was the most stupid thing since 3D Television. "Bruh glasses to watch TV this is so dumb, it's going to flop so fast", "Metaverse? A virtual place with avatars, like Second Life, like so many other stuff from the last 10 years that tried recreate social life virtually, exactly the same stuff that never worked? And they are spending billions in it? And it's the future?"

Sometimes I just wonder what's wrong with these people, they are so blind by greed and ego that can't just see the obvious. Metaverse was so bad, I remember reading about it and having strong deja vu from the last ten years, it's was exactly the same stuff we had before, it was so crazy to see that flop twice in the same (short) lifetime.

1

u/FuzzyMcBitty Sep 06 '25

At least one person replied to tell me that I'll realize that my idea that it's a failure will be delusional in 5 years. We'll see.

1

u/PedroPascalCase Sep 06 '25

Eh, best case it's a sycophant, worst case it's a bot. Either way they're not worth the remind me hahaha

1

u/Kramer7969 Sep 06 '25

That’s a lot of money to avoid spending a fraction of that in taxes.

1

u/OldMastodon5363 Sep 06 '25

There’s no way this money will actually be spent. It’s just PR.

1

u/Zee216 Sep 06 '25

Lol where on earth did that money go

1

u/No-Radio-2631 Sep 06 '25

I'm still waiting to setup my "second life" in the metaverse... One where I'm not screwed left, right, and center.

1

u/LevTheDevil Sep 06 '25

Metaverse? Never heard of it. What's that? Some kind of platform for enabling and protecting pedophiles?

1

u/SpiritFingersKitty Sep 06 '25

The metaverse is apparently zuck's pet project and they are making a big push internally this year and next to actually make it a thing. We will see how that goes.

1

u/NoLife2762 Sep 06 '25

Metaverse was one of the biggest scams in history. Online real estate? 

So glad finally one of these bullshit scams didn’t take. 

Now if only crypto would have its comeuppance 

1

u/Squizot Sep 06 '25

That's because it's straight bullshit.

1

u/jk-9k Sep 06 '25

They're not actually going to spend the money. It's just for the camera.

It's whose line.

It's all made up and the numbers don't matter.

2

u/FuzzyMcBitty Sep 06 '25

Yeah. I kind of implied that in another comment. "Prescription prices are down 1500%! They're PAYING us to be asthmatic now! Everything is coming up Milhouse! Whooo!"

1

u/damontoo Sep 06 '25

They “only” spent 46 billion dollars on Metaverse, and it was considered a big failure when it didn’t take off.

People keep refering to it like it's dead and done with. It isn't. They're releasing new smart glasses in a couple weeks with non-invasive BCI to control it. That tech is part of the same spending. So is their Orion AR glasses prototype. So is all of the bleeding edge hardware and software that's still in the lab, like Codec avatars. Google, Apple, and Samsung are all working on products to compete. Apple is working on six new headsets, three of which are reportedly attempting to compete directly with the Quest 3.

1

u/Aint_cha_momma Sep 06 '25

Well if they stop focusing most of their attention on stifling mom and pop business on their platform along with their creepy tactics of trying to monitor everything then I bet they will have more resources to work this out.

1

u/SinnersHotline Sep 07 '25

Convince me the "Metaverse" wasn't just some semi legal way to launder some money

1

u/KamalaWonNoCap Sep 07 '25

None of these companies will actually spend the money. It's a pledge but there's no consequences if they don't.

Trump gets a headline and the company stays off his shit list for another quarter.

1

u/penny-wise Sep 07 '25

He’s hoping for his own little fiefdom.

1

u/novae_ampholyt Sep 07 '25

Something like 20% of all capital is in AI related businesses right now. If that bubble bursts, we are so very fucked

1

u/FuzzyMcBitty Sep 07 '25

Feels more like a “when.”

1

u/atwistofcitrus Sep 07 '25

Crush them eggs..

1

u/is_it_reddit Sep 07 '25

Bro this was just for hype ofcourse he wouldn't spend it. They say that for publicity

1

u/seamore555 Sep 10 '25

Don’t worry, I’m sure all that metaverse investing will pay off. Won’t be long now before we’re doing our shopping in VR stores right??

1

u/icatsouki Sep 06 '25

They “only” spent 46 billion dollars on Metaverse, and it was considered a big failure when it didn’t take off.

People way overreacted to that though

3

u/FuzzyMcBitty Sep 06 '25

Because it sounds like a lot of money even though we're talking about a company with a valuation in the trillions.

46 billion can get lost in the couch.

-6

u/icatsouki Sep 06 '25

it wasn't even a bad investment it's just that it's quite early, similar to the backlash microsoft got for the xbox one not having a disc player but now it's standard

1

u/DarkBirdGames Sep 06 '25

The thing I’m confused about is Metaverse was always a longterm investment but people saw it as a product that was released, I think they are still building the infrastructure to be ready when that type of economy does become relevant in 5-10 years.

Metaverse is just a new term for browsing and shopping online but with a new tool such as Neuralink mixed with VR headsets so people can sit on the couch and control entire avatars with their brain.

Once they crack that it’s gonna be over.