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Bill Ackman, the billionaire activist investor, has made a bold financial move by investing nearly $2 billion in Meta, signaling his confidence in Mark Zuckerberg’s tech empire to emerge victorious in the competitive landscape of artificial intelligence. This substantial investment underscores Ackman’s strategy to align with a leader in AI development.
This investment constitutes about 10% of the portfolio of Pershing Square, Ackman’s concentrated hedge fund. Although this is a significant portion of the fund’s assets, it represents only a small slice of Meta’s vast market valuation, illustrating Ackman’s strategic focus on high-impact investments.
The Wall Street Journal broke the news of Pershing Square’s significant stake in Meta on Wednesday, highlighting Ackman’s latest venture into the tech sector.
Pershing Square started acquiring shares in Meta last November, with an average purchase price of $625 per share, according to an investor presentation cited by the Journal. Since then, Meta’s stock has appreciated by 11% through the close of 2025, with an additional 3% increase since the start of the current year. This upward trajectory suggests that Ackman’s faith in Meta’s future might indeed be well-placed.
Since that time, Meta’s stock climbed 11% through the end of 2025 and another 3% year-to-date.
In the last six months, the stock has dipped around 13% as investors expressed concern over the massive sums the company has spent on AI.
Last month, it was reported that Meta was slashing roughly 1,500 jobs — about 10% of the 15,000-person workforce — inside its money-losing Reality Labs division as Zuckerberg shifts resources toward artificial intelligence.
The unit has racked up more than $70 billion in losses since 2020, fueling investor pressure, even as the CEO pours tens of billions of dollars into AI research, data centers and talent.
Zuckerberg has embarked on a massive spending spree to lure some of Silicon Valley’s top AI maestros.
He has expanded funding for Meta’s TBD Lab that’s focused on building what he has described as “superintelligence,” a $14.3 billion investment in Scale AI, and a more than $2 billion acquisition of AI startup Manus.
Pershing Square made clear it views Meta as uniquely positioned to benefit from artificial intelligence, writing that “AI-driven content recommendation systems materially enhance user engagement,” and that AI “leverages Meta’s rich first-party data to deliver more relevant and personalized ads.”
The firm argued that scaling engagement across the company’s massive user base improves utility for both consumers and advertisers, reinforcing Meta’s dominance in digital advertising.
On valuation, the hedge fund noted that Meta is “currently trading at 22x NTM P/E (meaning the stock price is about 22 times what analysts expect the company to earn over the next 12 months) due to concerns around magnitude of spending plans on AI initiatives.”
But Pershing Square said the “significant upside potential from AI supports front-loading infrastructure and talent investments.”
It also pointed to Meta’s past cost discipline and recent budget cuts as evidence that the company can balance spending with operational efficiency.
Shares of Meta were down around 1% near the close of Wednesday’s trading session on Wall Street. The company’s stock is trading at around $670 per share.
A Meta spokesperson and a rep for Ackman both declined to comment.
Pershing Square has also built a major position in Uber, arguing that the ride-hailing and food-delivery giant is poised for sustained growth.
The firm wrote that the “medium-term outlook positions Uber for continued teens-plus bookings growth and 30%+ growth in earnings-per-share,” noting that its forecasts incorporate planned investments in autonomous vehicles.
Ackman has highlighted Uber’s improving profitability and operating leverage as signs the company is entering a more mature, cash-generative phase.
According to the company presentation, it has also taken a $1.3 billion stake in Amazon.
Pershing Square described the company as the “largest cloud business by market share, with secular IT infrastructure and process tailwinds, and the dominant retail e-commerce operator.”