When Donald Trump talks, secrets don't stay secret for long. In a cabinet meeting, Trump casually disclosed that Meta Platforms Inc.'s META highly touted Louisiana data center, Hyperion, carries a $50 billion price tag. That figure—never shared publicly by Meta—is a bombshell, not only because it dwarfs the original $10 billion estimate but also because it equals nearly 70% of Meta's entire capital expenditure budget for the year.
Louisiana state officials had previously pegged the cost of Hyperion at $10 billion, a number investors and the public alike took at face value. Even CEO Mark Zuckerberg, when introducing the project in July on Threads, described it only as part of Meta's broader push to spend "hundreds of billions" on compute to build artificial superintelligence.
But none of those statements suggested the project would balloon to five times its initial estimate. Trump's reveal now forces Meta into an awkward spotlight on just how far it is willing to go—and spend—for its AI moonshot.
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Hints of a much larger price tag had already surfaced. Earlier this month, reports emerged that Meta tapped investment firms Blue Owl Capital and Pacific Investment Management Co. to spearhead a $29 billion financing package for Hyperion. That alone suggested the project was spiraling into far costlier territory than anyone realized.
With Trump putting the number at $50 billion, the Hyperion build-out may rank among the most expensive data center projects in corporate history—comparable to mega infrastructure undertakings rather than typical tech capex.
For Meta, Hyperion isn't just another facility—it's intended to be the cornerstone of Zuckerberg's AI ambitions. But with a $50 billion price tag now on the table, the pressure is enormous to prove this spending translates into breakthroughs rather than bloated costs.
Shareholders, already wary of heavy AI investments, will be asking whether this bet powers the future of Meta—or risks becoming Silicon Valley's priciest white elephant.
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