For a decade, Big Tech's cash machines paid for every moonshot. Now Meta (META) is passing the hat, and the plan behind it began with a standoff between Mark Zuckerberg and his board.

Meta is selling nearly $100 billion of stock to pay for AI. Even Nvidia (NVDA) is chipping in $3 billion. The company that sells Meta its AI chips is now buying its stock, too.

Meta isn't the only giant coming up short. Amazon (AMZN) and Alphabet (GOOGL) each spent more than their businesses brought in during a quarter this year, then borrowed heavily. Meta is the first to hand much of the bill to shareholders instead.

Who's paying, piece by piece

Meta priced $25 billion of regular stock at $625 a share, below Friday's close. Buyers didn't flinch. Orders came in about five times the shares on offer, Bloomberg reported, and more than half went to long-term and existing investors. Another $12.5 billion went into preferred stock that pays 6.5% and turns into common stock in 2029. That sale was oversubscribed several times, too.

The biggest piece, up to $60 billion, hasn't been sold yet. It's a new class of nonvoting stock that Meta plans to sell a little at a time starting next year.

Meta, Yahoo Finance

Why Meta needs the money

Last quarter, Meta spent almost $34 billion on buildings and equipment, mostly for AI. Its business brought in almost $33 billion of cash. That pushed free cash flow negative for the first time since 2012, the year Meta went public.

The company that bought back about $45 billion of its own stock in 2021 hasn't bought back a share in a year. Now it's selling.

Meta SEC filings, Yahoo Finance

A house, a board and a stock with no vote

Meta's nonvoting shares grew out of a fight over Zuckerberg's taxes, a company filing shows. He told the board he planned to leave California before the Nov. 3 vote on a billionaire tax. At a Sept. 9 board dinner, he said he'd list his Palo Alto home within days.

Five days later, they struck a deal. Every shareholder gets a free nonvoting share for each share owned, the same kind Meta plans to sell. The filing says Meta needs to raise "hundreds of billions of dollars" over several years.

Zuckerberg owns about 13% of Meta but controls about 61% of the votes, and shares without a vote keep it that way. Your money is welcome. Your vote isn't needed.

The bond market isn't so sure

The cost of insuring Meta's debt against default hit a record 127 basis points Friday, then eased Monday even as the stock slipped. At 120, Meta's five-year credit default swaps imply nearly a 10% chance of default over five years, up from about 4% a year ago, by Yahoo Finance calculations.