In mid-March, Meta Platforms, Inc. President Dina Powell McCormick hosted a dinner at the Grill restaurant in New York, gathering several of the world's top asset management executives.
The upscale Manhattan steakhouse welcomed guests including Saudi Public Investment Fund Governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan, Brookfield Asset Management CEO Bruce Flatt, BlackRock Director Adebayo Ogunlesi, and Blackstone Group CEO Steve Schwarzman and President Jonathan Gray.
This dinner capped off a day of intensive meetings for McCormick on Wall Street, serving as a platform to convey a central message: Meta's ambitious strategy to lead in artificial intelligence requires massive external funding, and she is prepared to spearhead discussions on innovative financing and partnership opportunities.
Since joining Meta Platforms, Inc. in January, this former Goldman Sachs executive has quickly become one of Silicon Valley's most influential intermediaries, overseeing what could be the company's largest-ever capital expenditure program. The social media giant plans to invest up to $600 billion in the United States alone by 2028.
Multiple sources familiar with the matter indicate that Powell McCormick, who served in the first Trump administration and has strong Republican ties along with extensive sovereign wealth fund connections, is exploring complex off-balance-sheet financing arrangements and structured financial instruments—avenues previously not considered by Meta's leadership.
For two decades, Meta Platforms, Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg relied on the steady advertising cash flow from Facebook and Instagram to fund growth. However, soaring costs for data center construction and operation, surging expenses for scarce chips, and intense competition for AI talent are now compelling the company to seek new financing paths.
Earlier this month, British media reported that Powell McCormick, alongside CFO Susan Li, is evaluating a financing option modeled after Google's $85 billion share issuance, potentially raising tens of billions through a new stock offering. Meta has stated it is exploring flexible and diverse funding channels to support its AI development roadmap.
Powell McCormick is also involved in high-level strategic discussions, where the team is considering more transformative options. This includes a radical idea: whether the $1.5 trillion company should build its own cloud computing business to compete directly with Amazon, Google, and Microsoft.
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink remarked, "Meta is a completely different company today, and Dina is the key person connecting the capital. The scale of deals we've executed in the last four months equals all our previous work with Meta combined."
Blackstone President Jonathan Gray noted, "Mark has realized that compute power is the foundation of all Meta's businesses. When Dina Powell is involved in negotiations, things get done."
She faces significant challenges. Compared to other hyperscale cloud providers, Meta is smaller. As the company's debt issuance grows and its free cash flow tightens, its position becomes more precarious. In the race for top-tier large language models, Meta also lags behind competitors' AI labs, with many industry insiders doubting its ability to become a leader.
In this newly created, comprehensive executive role, she must also navigate complex internal factional dynamics at Meta, where many senior leaders are long-time confidants of Zuckerberg. An insider revealed, "There is some internal resistance; executives don't always welcome the questions she raises."
The Silicon Valley circle is often insular, with few veteran bankers directly entering the core leadership of tech giants. Her appointment coincides with two major developments: Zuckerberg's overtures to the Trump camp and Meta's costly, high-stakes strategic pivot to develop "personal superintelligence."
Meta forecasts its AI-related capital expenditures will surge to as high as $145 billion this year, with spending expected to rise further by 2027. To offset these massive investments, Zuckerberg has conducted multiple rounds of layoffs, contributing to employee morale hitting a historic low.
Powell McCormick is co-leading a new initiative called "Meta Compute" alongside the company's veteran global infrastructure head, Santosh Janardhan, and entrepreneur Daniel Gross.
Zuckerberg stated that over the coming decades, this project aims to build AI infrastructure with a total capacity of hundreds of gigawatts. The construction cost for just one gigawatt of data center capacity can reach tens of billions of dollars, with power consumption comparable to that of a nuclear reactor.
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