Meta vs. Microsoft: Two AI Spenders, Two Very Different Verdicts From Wall Street

Meta (NASDAQ: META) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) some reported connected July 29, 2026, and the results divided Wall Street into 2 camps.

Meta bushed connected gross but missed severely connected net arsenic AI infrastructure costs swallowed the quarter. Microsoft delivered a cleanable beat, an Azure milestone, and a backlog fig truthful ample it reframed the full AI capex debate. Same theme, other verdict.

Ads Still Print Cash for Meta. Azure Is Doing the Heavy Lifting for Microsoft.

Meta's Family of Apps produced $60.37 cardinal successful revenue, with advertizing up 27% twelvemonth implicit twelvemonth connected a 14% assistance successful impressions and a 12% summation successful mean terms per ad. The motor works.

The occupation sat beneath the apical line: operating borderline compressed to 31% from 43%, weighed down by a $2.4 cardinal ineligible complaint and $1.18 cardinal successful severance tied to an 8,000-person cut. EPS of $6.18 missed the $7.2173 consensus, snapping a six-quarter bushed streak.

Microsoft's Intelligent Cloud conception delivered $39.31 billion, increasing 32%. Azure unsocial grew 43% and crossed $100 cardinal successful yearly gross for the archetypal time. Microsoft 365 Copilot passed 30 cardinal paid seats. EPS came successful astatine $4.74 versus a $4.2397 estimate, an 11.81% bushed aided by a $3.2 cardinal Anthropic-related gain.

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One Company Is Selling the Vision. The Other Is Selling the Receipts.

Both CEOs dependable optimistic, but the impervious looks precise different. Mark Zuckerberg framed the 4th arsenic an concern year, saying "AI is accelerating our halfway concern today, powering our adjacent procreation of products, and opening the doorway to wholly caller endeavor opportunities."

The endeavor accidental is inactive theoretical. Meta's 2026 capex usher moved to $130 cardinal to $145 billion, and escaped currency travel collapsed 91.31% to $784 million.

Satya Nadella pointed to circumstantial numbers: "We are advancing the frontier connected the cost-to-outcome curve, ensuring each lawsuit tin crook tokens into concern results." Behind that punctuation sits a $678 cardinal commercialized RPO backlog, up 84% twelvemonth implicit year. Meta has nary equivalent contracted-revenue metric.