Meta shares close at a record as last year's mega rally continues

Meta's stock price has fully rebounded from its awful year in 2022.

The share rose almost 2% on Friday to close at $383.45, setting a new record. The rally, which follows an almost 200% jump last year, is an indication that investors continue to be pleased with the lingering effects of CEO Mark Zuckerberg's major cost-cutting initiatives in 2023 that resulted in the elimination of over 20,000 jobs.

Zuckerberg pitched 2023 as a "year of efficiency" following a disastrous 2022, when the stock plunged 64% to its lowest since 2016.

Meta's previous high was in September 2021 at $382.18, right around the peak of the tech bull market. However, Meta's market cap is still below its record, because the company has been buying back tens of billions of dollars in stock, reducing the number of shares outstanding. In September 2021, its market cap was near $1.1 trillion. Currently, it's below $1 trillion.

Investors are increasingly bullish on the company's position in the booming artificial intelligence market.

Earlier this week, Zuckerberg indicated in an Instagram Reels posting that Meta will have 350,000 Nvidia H100 graphics cards by the end of the year along with "almost 600k H100 equivalents of compute if you include other GPUs." That suggests the company is spending billions of dollars to help support its AI ambitions.

Meta will report fourth-quarter earnings on Feb. 1.

Watch: The AI dark horse: Why Apple could win the next evolution of the AI arms race