Meta’s Louisiana Purchase

You have to admire Meta Platforms’ public relations savvy. Its Monday announcement that it was putting an additional $40 billion into its giant Louisiana data center—making its total investment in the facility $50 billion—was perfectly designed to win over what has become a critical constituency in the data center market: local communities. “Teachers and Local Businesses Win as Meta Expands Louisiana Date Center” was the headline on the press release. Take that, data center opponents!

Among the testimonials was one from the owner of a local taco business, who was quoted saying, “Meta gave us the courage to grow here.” Meta’s approach makes a lot of sense, given the number of cities or states contemplating data center bans. Then again, Meta shareholders might prefer a different press release, one headlined “Meta Shareholders Win as Meta Spends Less on Data Centers.” Thanks to Meta’s spend-like-there’s-no-tomorrow approach to AI investment, its stock has fallen 8.6% over the past 12 months, making it one of the worst-performing big tech stocks. It fell 1.9% on Monday, a bigger drop than the overall market’s.