From groundbreaking in a small North Carolina city to a jaw-dropping executive pay plan that only kicks in if Meta becomes the most valuable company in human history, Mark is playing a different game.
Meta is not building for right now. It is building for a version of the future that most companies would not dare put on paper, and this week two very different announcements made that clearer than ever. One involves a groundbreaking in a mid-sized North Carolina city that most of the country has never thought about twice. The other involves a pay package so astronomical it would only trigger if Meta becomes worth more than twice the current value of the world’s most valuable company. Together, they tell the story of a corporation that has decided, in remarkably concrete terms, that it intends to win.
The plant that will power AI’s future
This morning, construction crews broke ground in Hickory, North Carolina, on what is set to become the largest fiber optic manufacturing plant on earth. Corning Inc., the company that has been producing optical cable in Catawba County for nearly 50 years, is expanding its facility at the Trivium Corporate Center as part of a sweeping $6 billion agreement with Meta announced in January. When complete, the Hickory plant will produce the optical cable that feeds AI data centers, the physical backbone without which none of the artificial intelligence products consumers interact with daily would function at scale.
The partnership makes sense when you understand what AI infrastructure actually demands. AI data centers require significantly more fiber than traditional cloud computing setups, and the demand for Corning’s product has risen sharply as the buildout accelerates. Corning currently employs more than 5,000 people across North Carolina, with facilities in Newton, Wilmington, Winston-Salem, Concord and Charlotte in addition to Hickory. The expansion is expected to grow the company’s North Carolina workforce by 15% to 20%, pushing its headcount in the state toward 6,000.
Corning’s stock tells its own story about how the market views all of this. Shares were trading around $134.30 today, up more than 53% since January 1 and up more than 193% over the past 52 weeks, giving the company a market capitalization of $115.6 billion. For a company that started making glass casings for Thomas Edison’s lightbulbs in the late 1870s and invented optical fiber in 1970, the current moment represents something close to a second act of historic proportions.
The $9 trillion number that explains everything
On the same day shovels hit the ground in Hickory, a separate piece of Meta’s ambition was drawing attention of a very different kind. The company has filed a new executive compensation plan with the Securities and Exchange Commission that covers six of its top leaders, including Chief Financial Officer Susan Li, Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth, Chief Operating Officer Javier Olivan and Chief Product Officer Chris Cox. The plan grants each executive stock options worth up to $625.6 million, with total potential compensation reaching as high as $921 million per executive once restricted stock units are factored in.
The catch is that none of it pays out unless Meta’s market cap climbs from its current level of roughly $1.36 trillion to $9 trillion by 2031. To put that in perspective, $9 trillion would make Meta worth more than twice Nvidia’s current valuation, and Nvidia is the most valuable company in the world right now. For even the first tranche of options to vest, Meta’s stock would need to more than double from current levels, crossing $1,116 per share. Notably, CEO Mark Zuckerberg is excluded from the plan entirely.
Why the numbers might not be as wild as they sound
Meta’s stock is currently down roughly 32% from its all-time high, which might make the $9 trillion conversation feel theoretical. But the forward projections attached to the business suggest a more serious foundation than the headline target implies. Revenue is forecast to climb from approximately $201 billion in 2025 to $448 billion by 2030. Earnings per share on a GAAP basis are expected to rise from $29.60 in 2026 to $57.61 by 2030. Of the 45 analysts currently covering the stock, 40 recommend buying it, with an average price target of $864, roughly 61% above current levels.
The free cash flow picture is more complicated in the near term. Analysts expect it to fall sharply in 2026 as Meta pours capital into data centers, AI infrastructure and custom chips. But the same forecasts project a powerful recovery, with free cash flow more than doubling by 2028 and approaching $119 billion by 2030. That trajectory is what underpins Meta’s dividend story as well. The company initiated its first-ever dividend in early 2024, and analysts project it growing at a compound annual rate of 12.6% through 2030.
The picture that emerges from Hickory and from the SEC filing is the same one: a company that is not hedging, not waiting and not apologizing for the scale of what it believes it can become.