Meta Platforms, Inc. META

Key data

What the pay plan says

The proxy publishes no threshold and no maximum for the company performance percentage, which leaves the committee's judgment as the only boundary. No performance condition sits anywhere in the equity, where nearly all of the money is. They vest whether revenue doubles or stalls. Staying is the performance condition. The absence of numbers here is ownership rather than drift, because Zuckerberg holds 341,823,978 Class B shares and 60.8% of the vote.

What three years of judgment produced

The score fell three years running while revenue growth held at 22%, and the cash went up anyway. In February 2025 the committee lifted the target from 75% of earnings to 200%, which is why the CFO's bonus more than doubled on a lower score. The multiplier did the work, and no bar rose or held because there were never any bars.

Family of Apps costs grew 67% last quarter against 28% revenue growth, which is how operating income went backwards. Ad impressions rose 14% and price per ad 12%, but daily users grew 3%. No target is published, so there is nothing for the market to disbelieve. The only forward number the board owns is the CFO's guidance of $165B to $169B of 2026 expenses against $117.7B spent in 2025.

What they do next

What the company can no longer do is fund this out of pocket. First-half operating cash flow was $64.1B against $49.1B of property purchases, with 2026 capital expenditure guided to $130B to $145B after two upward revisions in one year. Long-term debt went from $28.8B at the end of 2024 to $83.7B in June, and no shares were repurchased in the first half of 2026 with $25.03B still authorized.

So the moves left are the ones needing no capital. Price per ad carries more of the growth than impressions as user growth slows. Headcount keeps falling while revenue climbs, since 8,000 people were cut in May and most leave the reported count by the third quarter. Legal matters get reserved in lumps, the way $2.40B landed in one quarter beside a reset expense range. And the repurchase line stays at zero while notes are issued instead, which moves this buildout onto the balance sheet and out of the year the bonus is scored, cheaper for the payout and dearer for the owner.

Zuckerberg has made no open-market sale since August 13, 2025, after disposing of 1,971,171 shares for $1.30B in the twelve months before that, and since then has only converted 834,030 Class B shares and gifted 1,231,037. Susan Li disposed of 167,000 shares for $105.7M across 46 code S transactions, Olivan $37.5M, Bosworth $24.3M. The owner stopped taking money out as the spending started, and the officers paid in units kept turning units into cash.

Closing thoughts

Meta pays four executives a number the board picks after the fact, mostly in stock that vests with the calendar, so no cost line appears anywhere on the page. That is why revenue can grow 28% and operating profit fall 8% in the same quarter without anyone's pay registering it. What slows this down will be the balance sheet, not the scorecard.