Bombshell report exposes how Meta relied on scam ad profits to fund AI

What's it called when a company makes a significant amount of revenue from criminal operations?

>“Hey it’s me,” one scam advertisement using Elon Musk’s photo read. “I have a gift for you text me.” Another using Donald Trump’s photo claimed the US president was offering $710 to every American as “tariff relief.” Perhaps most depressingly, a third posed as a real law firm, offering advice on how to avoid falling victim to online scams.

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>More recently, a 2025 document showed Meta continues to weigh how “abrupt reductions of scam advertising revenue could affect its business projections.”

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>For example, in February, Meta told “the team responsible for vetting questionable advertisers” that they weren’t “allowed to take actions that could cost Meta more than 0.15 percent of the company’s total revenue,” Reuters reported. That’s any scam account worth about $135 million, Reuters noted. Stone pushed back, saying that the team was never given “a hard limit” on what the manager described as “specific revenue guardrails.”

Gosh it would be a shame if our cut of the scams were to stop ...