Meta Projected Spending Up to $10 Billion Annually on Anthropic’s AI Models
Meta internally projected spending as much as $10 billion a year on Anthropic’s models, making it one of the lab’s largest customers. While Mark Zuckerberg publicly attacked leading AI labs, Meta has since cut back and its agent will launch on Meta’s own model.
Background
- August 31, 2026: This article references entrance signs at Meta’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California (Credit: Nokia621 via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)).
- The New York Times reported that Meta could spend up to $10 billion annually on Anthropic’s models, citing two unnamed sources.
- Anthropic estimated its yearly revenue would surpass $65 billion. A $10 billion line from a single customer would have been a significant portion of that.
Entangled Finances
Meta and Anthropic directly compete, but their finances are intricately linked:
- Meta pays Microsoft hundreds of millions annually to rent AI models.
- Google and Amazon have committed $73 billion to Anthropic while developing rival models.
Zuckerberg’s Public Stance
In a 6,500-word essay published this month, Zuckerberg criticized leading AI labs for attempting to consolidate power and painted a dystopian future. He did not mention Anthropic or its CEO Dario Amodei by name.
Key Quotes:
“If those labs lead, then the balance of power will favor larger institutions over individuals.”
Meta’s Spending Surge
- Spending on Anthropic models began intensifying at the start of the year.
- Meta engineers heavily used Claude Code, Anthropic’s coding tool.
- By April, internal competitions called tokenmaxxing emerged among employees burning the most Anthropic tokens.
- Meta executives discussed a $10 billion projection around this time.
- Token costs rose, leading to the removal of leaderboards.
Cutbacks and Future Plans
- Meta has since cut back on some Anthropic spending this summer, but continues to spend hundreds of millions monthly.
- The consumer agent, internally called Hatch, was powered and tested using Anthropic’s models.
- Upon public launch, Hatch will run on Meta’s own latest model.