Meta shares climbed 18% this week after CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the company would launch a cloud business to monetize its massive AI infrastructure investments.

The rally vindicated CNBC's Jim Cramer, who had predicted Meta could add $100 per share on such news. Shares gained more than 5% Friday alone, closing above $667.

Zuckerberg defended the cloud strategy in a Bloomberg interview Thursday, rejecting claims that Meta had overbuilt its AI infrastructure. "The offers that you get for using the compute are so high that it may make sense, in some cases, to rent out or consider those kinds of deals," he said.

Muse Spark 1.1 targets coding market

Investors also celebrated Meta's Thursday launch of Muse Spark 1.1, which the company calls its "strongest model for agentic and coding work yet." The upgrade can write and debug code, use external tools, and understand text, images, and video with minimal human intervention.

The model positions Meta to compete directly with Anthropic and OpenAI in advanced AI coding capabilities.

Meta expects $135 billion in capital expenditures this year at the midpoint of guidance. That compares to Microsoft's roughly $190 billion, Alphabet's $180-190 billion, and Amazon's $200 billion in projected 2026 capex.

The key difference is Meta's rivals already operate established cloud businesses to justify their AI spending. Meta's traditional digital advertising revenue had left investors questioning returns on AI investments.

"This idea that Meta is showing more forms of monetization of this huge capex cycle is why the stock is rallying now," said CNBC Investing Club portfolio director Jeff Marks.

Wall Street analysts remain bullish, with 91% rating Meta a buy and a mean price target of $821 — implying over 20% upside from current levels.

Despite this week's gains, Meta shares remain roughly flat year-to-date and well below their August 2025 record high of $790.