Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) shareholders rejected a slate of outside investor proposals at the company’s 2026 annual meeting, while Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg outlined what he described as four major opportunities tied to artificial intelligence: improving Meta’s core apps and advertising, personal AI agents, business agents and AI hardware.
Kate Kelly, Meta’s vice president and corporate secretary, said holders representing more than 92% of the voting power of the company’s Class A and Class B common stock were present or represented by proxy. She also noted that board members Hock Tan and Tracey Travis retired from the board at the meeting.
Shareholder Proposals Defeated
Meta shareholders voted on 12 proposals, including the election of directors and the ratification of Ernst & Young LLP as the company’s independent auditor for the fiscal year ending Dec. 31, 2026. Kelly said each director nominee received at least 82% support, while more than 99% of votes favored ratifying Ernst & Young.
All 10 shareholder proposals were defeated by wide margins, according to preliminary results announced at the meeting. The proposals covered AI data usage, executive pay, voting rights, human rights, hate speech, climate commitments, child safety, data protection and H-1B visa program risks.
- A proposal seeking a report on AI data usage oversight received about 10% support.
- A proposal calling for an annual shareholder vote on executive pay received about 27% support.
- A proposal seeking a recapitalization plan for one vote per share received about 26% support.
- A proposal asking Meta to disclose voting results by share class received about 20% support.
- Other shareholder proposals received support ranging from less than 1% to about 7%.
Kelly said final voting results would be posted on Meta’s website and filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission within four business days.
Zuckerberg Highlights AI Strategy
After the formal meeting concluded, Zuckerberg said more than 3.5 billion people use at least one of Meta’s apps each day. He said daily and monthly active users on Instagram and Facebook are growing, video is driving all-time high engagement across both apps, WhatsApp continues to see momentum, including in the U.S., and Threads remains on a trajectory “to become the leading app in its category.”
Zuckerberg said the launch of Meta Superintelligence Labs and its first model, Muse Spark, was the most important development since last year’s annual meeting. He said Spark has made Meta AI “a world-class assistant,” with large increases in usage since its release.
On AI monetization, Zuckerberg said Meta sees opportunities across four areas. He said AI is already improving ranking, recommendations, content understanding and advertising effectiveness in Meta’s core products. He also said personal agents could include free versions supported over time by commerce and ads, as well as premium subscription versions. For business agents, Zuckerberg said Meta expects to work toward a longer-term monetization model as the products mature.
“Businesses are willing to pay a portion of each sale in order to grow their revenue,” Zuckerberg said. “I think that will be true with business agents, too.”
AI Hardware and Reality Labs
Zuckerberg said Meta’s AI glasses continue to perform well, with the number of people using them daily tripling year over year. He said Meta launched Ray-Ban Meta Optics this year, designed for all-day wear rather than primarily as sunglasses, and has new partnerships coming later this year.
In response to shareholder questions about Reality Labs investment levels, Zuckerberg said the unit remains central to Meta’s long-term strategy to build the next computing platform. He said most of the current Reality Labs investment goes toward wearables, including AI glasses. He added that Meta is still investing in virtual reality but is focused on making that business more sustainable.
Zuckerberg said Meta expects Reality Labs operating losses this year to be similar to 2025, but beyond 2026 the company expects to gradually reduce losses through more mature supply chains, scaling wearables and VR, higher-margin revenue lines and operating efficiencies.
Capital Allocation Questions
Chief Financial Officer Susan Li said Meta does not currently plan to initiate a stock split. She noted that many brokerages now allow fractional-share investing and said Meta will continue to monitor market conditions and investor feedback.
Li also said Meta remains committed to returning capital to shareholders through quarterly dividends, which totaled $1.3 billion in the first quarter of 2026. She said the company will continue to assess the appropriate dividend size over time, subject to board approval, but had no new plans to share.
On share repurchases, Li said Meta had $25 billion remaining under its outstanding authorization as of March 31, 2026. However, she said the company did not repurchase shares in the first quarter of 2026 or the fourth quarter of 2025, adding that Meta currently views AI investment as its highest priority use of capital.
Asked whether Meta would build a cloud service to compete with companies such as AWS and Azure, Zuckerberg said the option is “definitely on the table.” He said outside companies regularly ask Meta about API services or buying compute capacity, but Meta has not done so because it currently believes it has uses for the compute it is building.
Zuckerberg said Meta does not manage the business to a specific target margin and is focused on growing consolidated operating profit over time. He said the company is currently in the phase of making significant infrastructure investments to build the models that will power future experiences, while revenue from those efforts is not yet fully reflected beyond improvements to the core business.
About Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META)
Meta Platforms, Inc (NASDAQ: META), formerly Facebook, Inc, is a global technology company best known for building social networking services and immersive computing platforms. Founded in 2004 and headquartered in Menlo Park, California, the company operates a family of consumer-facing products and services that connect users, creators and businesses. In October 2021 the company rebranded as Meta to reflect an expanded strategic focus on augmented and virtual reality technologies alongside its social media businesses.
Meta's core consumer products include Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, which enable social networking, messaging, content sharing and community building across mobile and desktop devices.
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