Meta plans $95bn stock offering to help cover AI expansion

Tech firm announces two-part fundraising after Elon Musk warns hundreds of AI startups face collapse

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Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has announced plans for a $95bn (£71bn) fundraising to cover its AI expenditure, even as Elon Musk warned that funding for smaller players in the sector was drying up.

The owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp is a leading investor in AI and is ploughing multibillion-dollar sums into datacentres, the central nervous systems of the technology.