Meta details $600 billion US investment pledge that led to a hot-mic moment between Zuckerberg and Trump

• Meta has formally announced a $600 billion US investment.
• Mark Zuckerberg initially discussed the pledge at a White House dinner in September, and later in a hot-mic moment with Trump.
• The money will “support AI technology, infrastructure, and workforce expansion,” Meta said.

The $600 billion US investment that Mark Zuckerberg previously floated at a White House dinner with Trump is set to become a reality.

In a blog post published by Meta on Friday, the company said that it would commit over $600 billion to the US by 2028 to “support AI technology, infrastructure, and workforce expansion.”

The details follow a September pledge by Zuckerberg during a meal with Trump and other AI leaders, where he said Meta would invest “something like, I don’t know, at least $600 billion through 2028 in the US.”

At the time, Zuckerberg appeared to express some uncertainty about the exact number. In a side conversation with President Donald Trump, audible during a hot-mic moment, Zuckerberg was heard saying, “I wasn’t sure what number you wanted to go with.”

At a Goldman Sachs conference in San Francisco later that month, Meta CFO Susan Li talked more about Zuckerberg’s pledge. The overall number referred to “the total envelope” of Meta’s US investment plans from this year through 2028, Li said. That includes all Meta’s data center infrastructure plans in the US as well as “all the investments that go towards supporting our US business operations,” including the personnel Meta hires, she added.

Fast forward to today, and Meta is now formalizing the $600 billion figure and providing more details about how it will allocate the money.

Meta said it will use the funds to develop AI data center designs that reduce water use, aiming to become “water positive” by 2030 —meaning it will return more water to the environment than it consumes.

“By building in the US, we’re not only advancing AI technology and infrastructure, but also creating jobs, supporting local economies, and reinforcing America’s technological leadership,” Meta said.

Since 2010, Meta said its data center initiatives have supported 30,000 skilled trade jobs and 5,000 operational jobs.

“We’re currently bringing more than $20 billion in business to subcontractors across the US, supporting steel workers, pipefitters, electricians, fiber technicians, and others who are building the next generation of AI-optimized data centers,” Meta added.

Meta has increased its capex spending, much of which is on AI data centers and infrastructure, which is expected to reach new heights in the coming year.

Zuckerberg has said the risk of overbuilding AI infrastructure is worth it if it means not falling behind in the race to superintelligence.

In what Zuckerberg called the “very worst case” on Meta’s recent earnings call, the company would simply have “pre-built for a couple of years,” eating some depreciation costs and eventually growing into the extra capacity.