Meta loses $100 billion in a day as OpenAI raises up to $30 billion at a $1.25 trillion valuation

On a day when fears about AI spending sank U.S. tech stocks, OpenAI was closing a round of up to $30 billion at a $1.25 trillion valuation.

The Nasdaq Composite fell 2.6% on Oct 22 and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index dropped 6.7%. The Kobeissi Letter counted a 2.9% fall in the Nasdaq 100, its biggest daily drop since June 5, wiping out about $1.2 trillion in market value.

Meta was at the center. Per Yahoo Finance, its shares fell about 6% after third-quarter free cash flow turned negative at $2.12 billion and it raised the floor of its 2026 capex forecast from $130 billion to $135 billion to $145 billion. ZeroHedge said the 6% drop at the open erased $100 billion in value. Per Bloomberg, Meta's five-year credit default swaps hit a record 114.5 basis points, meaning it costs about $114,500 a year to insure $10 million of its debt. "Insuring Meta's debt costs more than my salary," one reply read.

Per CNBC, investors from the UAE and Coatue are leading OpenAI's round, framed as an "opportunistic" bridge ahead of a potential IPO, with signatures targeted by the end of next week. Anthropic is reportedly seeking $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion in its IPO. Bloomberg reported that China's DeepSeek raised about $15 billion.

Korea felt it too. SK hynix said on Oct 23 it had stopped considering a pre-IPO and IPO for its U.S. unit Solidigm, citing financial market volatility and the correction in chip stocks.