Google owner Alphabet and Facebook parentMeta Platforms have been frustrating stocks to own in 2026—but they were getting some love from investors on Monday, even as abroader tech selloffraged on.
Alphabet climbed 3% and Meta added 2.7% in Monday trading. The tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 fell 0.3% after the bosses of Anthropic, OpenAI, and SpaceX called for a slowdown in AI development.
The two Big Tech companies could benefit from a coordinated slowdown by the developers of Claude, ChatGPT, and Grok. Both Meta and Google are working on rival AI systems.
Google released the latest version of its Gemini chatbot, Gemini 3.8 Flash, earlier this month, while Meta’s consumer AI agent Muse hit the App Store’s top three last week.
But the latest iterations of Gemini and Muse both rank behind Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5.1, OpenAI’s GPT-6 Astra, and SpaceX’s Grok-4.6, according to OpenLM’s large-language model leader board.
If the three biggest AI companies slow down development, that could level the playing field.
The concerns about AI risks should also give both companies room to reposition, with Meta focused on data-center rental and Google leaning into its distribution and chip businesses, New Street Research analyst Dan Salmon said.
Shares of Alphabet and Meta have struggled for direction in 2026 as investors pile into chip and memory stocks. Alphabet was up 8.2% for the year through Friday’s close, while Meta was down 1.8%.
