The largest social media company in the world surpassed expectations for its first-quarter revenue, indicating that its AI-driven tools have effectively attracted advertising revenue despite concerns about economic growth due to tariffs.

Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, reported a revenue of $42.31 billion for the first quarter, exceeding analysts’ average projection of $41.40 billion. The company also revised its total expenses forecast for the year, lowering it to a range of $113 billion to $118 billion from a previous estimate of $114 billion to $119 billion. Conversely, Meta increased its capital expenditures forecast for 2025, now projected to be between $64 billion and $72 billion.

In after-hours trading on Wall Street, Meta shares surged by $23.46, or 4.3 percent, reaching $572.46, bringing the company’s total valuation to $1.4 trillion, supported by a 35 percent rise in net income to $16.64 billion, up from $12.37 billion in the previous year.

With its vast user base across its social media platforms, Meta remains a preferred choice for advertisers, especially as companies are tightening their marketing budgets and postponing campaigns amid tariff-related economic uncertainties.

“This revised outlook reflects our increased investments in data centers to bolster our artificial intelligence initiatives and an uptick in expected costs for infrastructure hardware,” the company mentioned in its earnings report.

These results arrive amid a significant legal battle in Washington, where the US Federal Trade Commission is aiming to reverse Meta’s acquisitions of key assets like Instagram and WhatsApp.

Founded as Facebook by Mark Zuckerberg, who rebranded it to Meta Platforms in 2021 to emphasize a shift towards the metaverse, the California-based company is also addressing criticism regarding its position in the AI sector, especially after its recent Llama 4 large language models fell below performance expectations.

A day prior, its smaller competitor Snap revised its second-quarter forecast downward, citing economic uncertainties and the end of a duty-free import loophole implemented by the Trump administration as factors negatively impacting its advertising business.