Investors who bought Meta Platforms (META 2.41%) in the early days don't have much to complain about. Since the company's initial public offering (IPO) in 2012, its shares have rocketed 1,520% higher (as of Jan. 14). This performance is well ahead of the S&P 500 index.
Meta is no longer a scrappy start-up. It sports an impressive market cap of $1.6 trillion. Could this "Magnificent Seven" stock help you retire a millionaire?
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Meta Platforms is thriving in the AI age
Meta isn't shying away from spending money on artificial intelligence (AI). It allocated $39 billion on capital expenditures (capex) in 2024, which is estimated to bump up to $71 billion (at the midpoint) last year. And the "current expectation is that capex dollar growth will be notably larger in 2026 than 2025," according to CFO Susan Li. These are massive sums of money meant to bolster Meta's technical infrastructure. And these outlays indicate the firm belief founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has in the potential of AI.
Not many companies are in such an advantageous position as Meta. It's already a dominant force in the tech world. In the third quarter (ended Sept. 30), it had 3.54 billion daily active users across its social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Threads), giving it unmatched reach across the globe.
And Meta rakes in extraordinary amounts of profits, totaling $37.7 billion in net income on $141.1 billion of revenue in the first nine months of 2025. This translates to sizable free cash flows, which allow the business to pay so much on AI-related capex. Of course, investors will want to see an adequate return on this capital. This is the big question that will take time to answer.
So far, Meta appears to be thriving in the AI age, though. Management mentioned on the Q3 2025 earnings call that AI is boosting engagement on its apps.
Advertising customers are the other critical stakeholder group Meta must focus on. The business collected $50 billion in ad revenue in Q3, accounting for 98% of its total. Meta's Advantage+ AI tools are lowering costs for these customers.
Zuckerberg previously said that if the company can improve its AI ad capabilities, then advertising will become a larger share of global GDP. This is a bold statement that I think might have gotten overlooked. However, it could foreshadow a tremendous opportunity that one of the most visionary CEOs sees in front of us.
NASDAQ: META
Key Data Points
Tailwinds for stock investors
Even at its huge size, Meta is growing at a solid clip. Its earnings per share (EPS) are projected to increase at a compound annual rate of 11.6% between 2024 and 2027. Those bottom line gains will help drive the stock higher.
It also helps that the valuation isn't expensive. Investors can scoop up shares by paying a forward price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple of 21.1.
I believe Meta Platforms is a good stock to buy. There's a high probability that it can beat the market over the next five years, mainly due to the reasonable starting valuation and potential for ongoing profit growth.
It's hard to say that the company will help investors retire as millionaires, though. Let's assume you're early into your investment journey and you have 30 years until retirement. It's impossible to predict what Meta will look like that far into the future.
And if you have less time until retirement, then it would require a significant starting investment of probably a six-figure sum to get to millionaire status in time.
At the end of the day, it's important to realize that this is an elite business that presents itself today as a worthwhile investment opportunity as part of a diversified portfolio. Whether it makes you a millionaire is not the point.
