Stock splits have become something of a phenomenon on Wall Street in recent years, often generating outsized enthusiasm among everyday investors even though the underlying economics of owning a company don’t actually change. Lower the nominal share price, and suddenly a stock feels more attainable—even if the total value of what you own is identical either way. That psychological effect has proven powerful enough to move markets, and two trillion-dollar companies now look increasingly ripe for the treatment.
Meta Platforms and Micron Technology share a few key traits that make them logical split candidates: elevated share prices, substantial retail ownership, and business momentum strong enough to suggest more gains may be ahead. Whether their respective boards act on that setup remains an open question, but the underlying case for each is worth examining.
Meta Platforms: Breaking a Streak That’s Never Been Broken
Every other member of the “Magnificent Seven” has split its stock at some point. Meta never has. That distinction becomes more interesting given where the stock trades today—around $654 per share—and who’s actually buying it.
Roughly 30% of Meta’s outstanding shares sit in the hands of individual retail investors rather than large institutions. That’s a meaningful detail, because institutional buyers generally don’t care what a single share costs; they’re transacting in large blocks regardless of price. Retail investors, on the other hand, often do think in terms of per-share affordability, even with fractional investing now widely available. A board weighing whether to split typically looks at exactly this kind of ownership breakdown, and Meta’s numbers suggest genuine incentive to act.
None of this split speculation matters much, of course, if the underlying business isn’t performing. On that front, Meta remains firmly in growth mode. Its portfolio of apps, including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads, pulled in 3.6 billion daily active users as of June, a reach that dwarfs every other social platform on the planet. That scale gives Meta enormous leverage with advertisers, and the company has been extending that advantage by embedding generative AI tools directly into its advertising products. Advertisers can now use AI to tailor both static images and video content to individual viewers, a capability that could meaningfully improve campaign performance and, by extension, the prices Meta commands for ad space.
Micron: A 26-Year Gap That’s Starting to Look Conspicuous
Micron’s case for a split arguably rests on even firmer ground than Meta’s. Shares closed the Labor Day weekend just above $1,017, and more than a quarter of the company’s outstanding stock—over 26%—is held by retail investors. Yet Micron’s board hasn’t authorized a split since 2000. That’s 26 years without one, even as the stock has climbed to four-figure territory.
What’s driving renewed attention to Micron isn’t just its current price tag, though—it’s the belief that the stock has plenty of room left to run. Over just the past 16 months, shares have rocketed more than 1,100% higher, propelled by Micron’s central role supplying memory for AI-driven data centers.
The specific product fueling that surge is high-bandwidth memory, which works alongside graphics processing units to move data at the extremely high speeds AI systems require for real-time decision-making. Demand for this memory has outstripped supply for an extended stretch now, handing Micron unusual leverage over pricing and building a sales backlog that already extends more than a year into the future. Memory chips have a well-earned reputation for turning into commodities that erode margins quickly, but with contracts already locked in through 2027, Micron’s current run of outsized growth looks more durable than a fleeting cyclical spike.
