StockTok: Meta lays off employees across platforms

Welcome to “StockTok,” The Fly’s weekly recap of Wall Street’s reactions to social media stock news.

NEXT GEN AI COMPANION: Zoom (ZM) launched Zoom AI Companion 2.0 on Wednesday, just weeks after announcing the next generation of Zoom AI Companion at Zoomtopia. AI Companion 2.0 is enhanced with additional capabilities to help expand context, synthesize information, and take action to give users time back in their day, so they can focus on meaningful work and building connections with team members, the company said. “We’re thrilled with AI Companion’s ability to help boost productivity throughout the workday. With our new capabilities, AI Companion has the power to help people make the most of their meetings, kickstart documents, get important information at a glance, and transform their workday,” said Jeff Smith, head of product, Workplace AI, Meetings, and Spaces at Zoom. “And, the substantial added value that we’re delivering today is just the beginning. Zoom is hyper-focused on customer experience, and in the coming weeks, we’ll support broader queries across Zoom Workplace, improve response times, and enable AI Companion to take more actions for the user.”

LLAMA STACK PACT: Infosys (INFY) strengthened its collaboration with Meta (META) to drive innovation in generative AI through open-source initiatives. Infosys is a strong proponent of open-source software and remains steadfast in its commitment to democratizing AI. Leveraging Meta’s Llama stack, a family of open-source large language models and tools, Infosys is driving significant advancements in AI and fostering innovation across industries. To accelerate adoption of Meta’s Llama stack and spur innovation, Infosys also unveiled a Meta center of excellence focused on accelerating enterprise AI integration while supporting internal adoption and contributions to open-source communities. This center will enable a large pool of talent on the Llama stack, develop industry-specific use cases, and collaborate closely with Meta to help customers seamlessly adopt the Llama stack.

SPREADING TRUTH+: Trump Media & Technology (DJT) announces that it has successfully launched an app for Amazon (AMZN) Fire TVs to access the Truth+ streaming platform. Additionally, the platform is available in the Google (GOOGL) Play Store for Android TVs, iOS mobile devices and for Apple (AAPL) TVs. Truth+ offers TV programming focusing on news, entertainment, faith-based content, weather, documentaries, children’s content, and more, featuring both linear TV channels and video on demand.

PUBLIC VS. PRIVATE: Meta has taken down accounts on Threads and Instagram that track private-jet travel of famous figures, Alexa Corse of The Wall Street Journal reported. Meta said the accounts, which use publicly available data to chronicle the planes’ movements, were suspended for privacy reasons, citing “risk of physical harm to individuals.”

LAWSUIT DISMISSED: Meta Platforms and CEO Mark Zuckerberg won the dismissal of a lawsuit claiming they misled shareholders in a proxy statement about their ability to ensure the safety of children who use social media platforms Facebook and Instagram, Jonathan Stempel of Reuters wrote. On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in San Franisco said plaintiff Matt Eisner failed to show shareholders suffered economic losses from the company’s allegedly inadequate disclosures.

CREATIVES TAKE STAND AGAINST AI: IFPI, representing the recording industry worldwide, has announced its support for the following AI Training Statement: The unlicensed use of creative works for training generative AI is a major, unjust threat to the livelihoods of the people behind those works, and must not be permitted. IFPI is among over 10,500 initial signatories of the statement, joining a broad range of creative industries and creator rights organizations as well as multi-platinum selling musicians, Nobel-winning authors, Academy Award-winning actors and Oscar-winning composers. These include Geoff Barrow from Portishead, Thom Yorke from Radiohead Bjorn Ulvaeus from ABBA, Julianne Moore, Kevin Bacon, Sir Ian Rankin, Malorie Blackman, William Boyd, Tracy Chevalier, Sir Kazuo Ishiguro, Kate Mosse, Max Richter and Sir John Rutter.

INTERNAL CONFLICT: Trump Media has soared on the stock market over the past month amid rising turmoil internally, the New York Times’ Matthew Goldstein reported, citing people with knowledge of the matter. The company has dismissed or pushed out at least three senior managers in recent weeks after several workers anonymously sent a letter to the board accusing CEO Devin Nunes of mismanagement. In the letter, staff said Nunes’ “directive” to hire foreign contractors was inconsistent with “the ‘America First’ principles we stand for” and noted Nunes has not formally addressed staff in two years, adding “this lack of transparency has left employees in the dark about the company’s vision, strategy and future.”

CELEB-BAIT CRACKDOWN: Meta said in a blog post on Monday: “Scammers are relentless and continuously evolve their tactics to try to evade detection, so we’re building on our existing defenses by testing new ways to protect people and make it harder for scammers to deceive others. We’re testing the use of facial recognition technology to detect and prevent celeb-bait ads on our platforms. We’re also testing this technology as a means for people to verify their identity and regain access to compromised accounts.” The company said “Scammers often try to use images of public figures, such as content creators or celebrities, to bait people into engaging with ads that lead to scam websites, where they are asked to share personal information or send money. This scheme, commonly called ‘celeb-bait,’ violates our policies and is bad for people that use our products.” Meta said early testing with a small group of celebrities and public figures “shows promising results in increasing the speed and efficacy with which we can detect and enforce against this type of scam.” In the coming weeks, Meta said it will start showing in-app notifications to a larger group of public figures who’ve been impacted by celeb-bait “letting them know we’re enrolling them in this protection.”

NETWORK EXPANSION COLLABORATION: Lumen Technologies (LUMN) and Meta are partnering to significantly increase Meta’s network capacity and help drive its bold AI ambitions. The expanded network will provide dedicated interconnection for Meta’s infrastructure and increasing the company’s AI development. The company said the Lumen partnership provides Meta with increased flexibility through secure on-demand bandwidth to support its complex computing needs and serve billions of people every day.

SHARE SALE: In a regulatory filing, Meta Platforms chief legal officer Jennifer Newstead disclosed the sale of 905 class A common shares of the company on October 15 at a price of $589.97 per share.

NOT SO OPEN: Stefano Maffulli, head of the Open Source Initiative, has criticized Meta for callings its AI models “open-source,” saying the company is “confusing” users and “polluting” the term, Richard Waters of The Financial Times said. In an interview with the Times, Maffulli said the company mislabeling its AI was “extremely damaging” at the time when government bodies, such as the European Commission, were seeking to support true open-source technologies.

LAYOFFS: Meta laid off employees across multiple teams on Wednesday, including employees working on Reality Labs, Instagram, and WhatsApp, TechCrunch’s Maxwell Zeff reported. The company confirmed the layoffs in a statement to the publication, saying “A few teams at Meta are making changes to ensure resources are aligned with their long-term strategic goals and location strategy. This includes moving some teams to different locations, and moving some employees to different roles. In situations like this when a role is eliminated, we work hard to find other opportunities for impacted employees.” A Meta spokesperson said that Threads, recruiting, and legal operations were not impacted by the reorganization.

ANALYST COMMENTARY: Roth MKM raised the firm’s price target on Reddit (RDDT) to $89 from $66 and maintained a Buy rating on the shares. The company has current contracts with Google and OpenAI for use of the platform’s data in training AI models, with Google partnership providing $60M in annual recurring revenue – ARR – and expectation of Open AI contribution of over $40M, the analyst tells investors in a research note. The firm adds that it would recommend buying Reddit shares on any post-earnings weakness.

JMP Securities upgraded Snap (SNAP) to Outperform from Market Perform with a $17 price target. With Snap set to roll out Simple Snapchat and launch Sponsored Snaps, it will see an “inflection in impression growth,” the analyst told investors in a research note. The firm believes the company can grow U.S. and North American engagement and drive greater advertising load with its new ad products. Additionally, channel checks with larger performance advertisers also are coming back favorably as Snap’s direct response product improvements are gaining traction, added JMP.

Jefferies increased its price target on Meta Platforms to $675 from $600 and reiterated a Buy rating on the shares as part of a Q3 earnings preview. Expectations are high with Meta shares up 21% since the Q2 report, but channel checks continue to be bullish, giving Jefferies conviction in revenue coming in above the midpoint of the company’s Q3 guidance, the analyst tells investors in a research note. The firm also expects Meta to guide Q4 revenue above the Street at high end. Jefferies sees pathway to $26-plus in fiscal 2025 earnings, making a $30 2026 earnings per share story “seem possible.” It continues to be encouraged by Meta’s ability to sustain double-digit revenue growth.

B. Riley boosted the firm’s price target on Reddit to $87 from $75 and kept a Buy rating ahead of the Q3 earnings report on October 29. The company’s sales growth is likely to be driven in by continued strong growth in daily active users as well as an increase in licensing revenue, while leverage in spending should drive faster growth in EBITDA and margin expansion, the analyst tells investors in a research note. The firm says Reddit’s commentary on platform improvements, trends in performance indicators, and its pipeline for content licensing deals will be key for stock in the near term. It cites prospects for higher profitability over the medium to longer term for the target increase.

Wedbush upgraded Zoom to Outperform from Neutral with a price target of $85, up from $80, as the firm transferred coverage of multiple software names across the tech industry. The company is expecting to see a re-acceleration in growth at enterprise customers, while seeing its churn stabilize, said the firm, which expresses “confidence in the story going forward.” Zoom’s broad portfolio includes video, voice and chat and it is now also expanding into the contact center with a “strong installed base” of small-to-mid sized business, mid-market and enterprise customers, positioning the company for strong up-sell and cross-sell opportunities, the analyst told investors.

TD Cowen elevated its price target on Meta to $675 from $600 and backed a Buy rating on the shares. The firm expects robust revenue growth of 19% year-over-year in 3Q, decelerating off a more difficult comp, with growth driven by improving engagement and monetization from video surfaces including Reels.