Mark Zuckerberg attends the UFC 320 event at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Oct. 4, 2025.

Chris Unger | Ufc | Getty Images

Meta on Wednesday launched a new program aimed at luring top creators from TikTok and YouTube to Facebook, offering guaranteed pay and boosted reach.

The Creator Fast Track program offers social media stars with established followings guaranteed monthly payments and increased reach on Facebook. It pays $1,000 a month to creators with at least 100,000 followers on Instagram, TikTok or YouTube, and $3,000 a month to those with over a million followers on any of those platforms.

“We have heard from established creators on other platforms … that it can be hard or intimidating to get started,” Yair Livne, vice president of product for Facebook Creators told CNBC. “So this program is really meant to address that need.”

The guaranteed payments will only last three months, but Livne said creators will get access to Facebook’s Content Monetization program and will continue receiving a reach boost “in perpetuity.”

The announcement comes as Meta steps up its broader push to win over this segment of users.

The company said it paid nearly $3 billion to creators in 2025, up 35% from the previous year. About 60% of that total went to Reels content, with the rest split across other formats.

Facebook, while boasting over 3 billion users, has long struggled to attract creators, who have gravitated toward TikTok and YouTube. The program is the next step in a process to attract those with established audiences to help boost original content on Facebook.

To be eligible, creators need to share at least 15 Reels on Facebook within a 30-day period, posted on at least 10 different days. The content does not need to be exclusive to Facebook, but must be original to the creator, including AI-generated content. 

Creators can also earn on Facebook through subscriptions, tipping, brand deals and Facebook Content Monetization, a program that pays creators who meet certain requirements based on engagement across short and long videos, stories, photos and text posts.

Meta is also adding new metrics to Facebook Content Monetization to show creators which views qualify for payout, their approximate earnings rate and why certain views did not qualify.

“I just don’t think that a lot of creators today think about Facebook as the primary place they can go. But that itself actually creates this huge arbitrage opportunity,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on “The Colin and Samir Show” last March.

Zuckerberg said at the time he wanted to revive what he called the original spirit of Facebook, or “OG Facebook.”

Since then, the company debuted a Friends tab for more personal content and overhauled the way it pays creators, shifting from a revenue share model to one based on engagement.

Meta is betting that a mix of up-front payments and expanded distribution can help jump-start activity on Facebook, particularly as creators increasingly complain about inconsistent earnings across platforms.

“We really want every creator to see Facebook as a home for them and a necessary platform to be on,” Livne said. “We believe monetization is a big part of that story.”

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Pixdeluxe | E+ | Getty Images

It often starts small.

A dab of concealer. A tinted moisturizer. Maybe a brow gel that goes from borrowed to bought. For many men, like Daniel Rankin, makeup has transformed from something taboo into a tool to make them look less tired and more put together.

“I remember thinking, ‘Am I really doing this?'” Rankin, a 24-year-old advertising agent from New York who likes to shop at Sephora, told CNBC. “But once I tried it, it just became normal.”

In front of bathroom mirrors and in gym locker rooms, more men are now adding cosmetics to their routines, industry experts told CNBC. The men’s makeup market is now one of the most lucrative — and largely untapped — growth opportunities left in beauty, and specialty retailers like Ulta Beauty and Sephora along with big-box companies like Target and Walmart all see opportunity.

“Men’s beauty is one of the last categories left where brands can likely still see easy double-digit growth potential simply by showing up,” said Delphine Horvath, professor of cosmetics and fragrance marketing at the Fashion Institute of Technology.

Men’s grooming sales in the United States topped $7.1 billion in 2025, up 6.9% year over year, according to market research firm NielsenIQ. The global market was valued at $61.6 billion in 2024 and projected to surpass $85 billion by 2032, with the biggest growth driven by the skin-care sector, according to Fortune Business Insights.

Much of the momentum is coming from Gen Z.

In the U.S., 68% of Gen Z men ages 18 to 27 used facial skin-care products in 2024, a sharp jump from 42% just two years earlier, according to data from market intelligence firm Mintel.

“This is no longer niche,” said Linda Dang, CEO of Canada-based Asian beauty retailer Sukoshi. “Men are forming routines, that usually starts at skin care and then expands further, they are no longer just buying random products. That’s what makes this market so valuable.”

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Unlike one-off grooming purchases, makeup encourages repeat use and experimentation. A man who starts with concealer often adds primer, setting powder or tinted SPF over time, said Farah Jemai, global marketing associate lead at beauty brand Unleashia.

“When men discover makeup that works, they don’t use once and never again,” Jemai told CNBC. “They restock.”

Market researchers estimate that in 2022, about 15% of U.S. heterosexual men ages 18 to 65 were already using cosmetics and makeup, while another 17% said they would consider it, according to Ipsos. Industry experts say those figures are likely higher in 2026.

Openness to cosmetics has grown, as the share of U.S. men who say they never wear makeup has fallen from more than 90% in 2019 to about 75% in 2024, Statista survey data show.

Retailers cater to men

Beauty conglomerates and startups alike are responding to the growth in men’s beauty.

Ulta Beauty and and Sephora have begun integrating men’s complexion products into gender-neutral, skin care-first displays rather than having “Men’s” aisles. Those gender-specific displays can feel intimidating or stigmatizing to some men, Horvath said.

Big-box retailers like Walmart and Target have also expanded their men’s cosmetics or grooming offerings.

For example, in 2025, Target partnered with online streaming collective AMP, Any Means Possible, to launch TONE. The men‑forward personal care brand debuted in Target stores nationwide in July, leveraging AMP’s massive Gen Z male following across YouTube and Twitch.

Online — where much of the growth and discovery is happening — many beauty brands are pouring money into influencer partnerships to increase engagement and sales on TikTok Shop and Amazon.

“So many brands are now putting most of their marketing budget into influencer marketing to meet people where they already are online and make it easier to click ‘buy,'” said Janet Kim, a vice president at K-beauty brand Neogen.

Others are leaning into digital education to teach men what different items do.

The brand War Paint sells makeup products like concealer pens, tinted moisturizers and anti-shine powders that feature QR codes on the packaging. Scanning them launches video tutorials explaining what each product does — without forcing customers to ask questions in a store.

“The biggest barrier isn’t price, it’s uncertainty,” Dang said. “Men want to know what a product does and how to use it without feeling awkward.”

But the path to mass adoption isn’t guaranteed.

Industry analysts warn that social stigma remains high and inflation threatens to curb spending on experimental, nonessential goods. Retailers also face a steep learning curve: It is difficult to scale a market when the core customer doesn’t know how to use the product.

Target’s SoHo store has an eye-catching “Beauty Bar” that shows off fragrances, makeup items and more.

Courtesy of Target

The emergence of men’s makeup

While men have worn makeup for centuries, from ancient Egypt to Elizabethan England, the modern commercial men’s makeup movement traces its roots to the mid-2010s.

In 2016, CoverGirl made history by appointing then 17-year-old YouTuber James Charles as its first-ever “CoverBoy,” placing a male face on a mass-market cosmetics brand for the first time.

Still, beauty conglomerates largely focused on women until recently, Sukoshi’s Dang said. Now, a broader cultural reset around masculinity is taking place and companies are racing to monetize it, FIT’s Horvath said.

Social media has been the single biggest accelerant, Dang said.

On TikTok and Instagram, male creators post step-by-step makeup routines, product breakdowns and before-and-after results that often emphasize subtle changes rather than dramatic looks. Hashtags tied to men’s grooming and makeup have amassed billions of views, with #mensgrooming alone surpassing 26 billion views on TikTok.

“TikTok democratized the ‘how-to,'” said Dang. “You don’t have to ask your sister or guess anymore. You just scroll, see a guy who looks like you fixing his acne in 30 seconds, and click ‘buy.’ It removed the gatekeepers.”

Gen Z men are also more comfortable rejecting rigid gender categories and more skeptical of marketing that frames products as inherently masculine or feminine, Horvath said.

At the same time, makeup has increasingly been folded into a broader wellness and optimization culture — sometimes referred to as “looksmaxxing” — that includes fitness tracking, supplements, hair-loss prevention and longevity routines.

“Many men have started framing grooming and, for some, makeup as maintenance, not vanity,” Horvath said. “That reframing removes stigma and unlocks spending.”

Celebrity influence has further accelerated adoption, with stars like Harry Styles, Brad Pitt and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson launching their own skin care and makeup brands, mirroring the trend of celebrity saturation largely seen in spirits.

Johnson’s brand Papatui, which launched at Target in 2024 and spans skin, hair, body and tattoo care, was created in response to ongoing questions about his grooming regimen. It now competes directly with legacy names like Clinique, L’Oréal and Kiehl’s.

CoverGirl James Charles

Source: COVERGIRL

Moving ahead

As the market matures, a debate is forming: Do men want “men’s makeup,” or do they just want makeup?

Horvath said there is a “bifurcation” in how companies are marketing their products.

Brands like War Paint and Stryx argue that men need products designed for their thicker, oilier skin, and packaged in masculine, tool-like containers that feel at home in a gym bag.

But Gen Z consumers are increasingly gravitating toward gender-neutral brands like LVMH co-owned Fenty Beauty, The Ordinary and Haus Labs. For them, labels that say “For Men” can feel outdated or even patronizing, Horvath said.

“In ten years, I don’t think we’ll be talking about ‘men’s makeup’ anymore,” Horvath said. “We will just be talking about makeup. The gender binary in beauty is dissolving, and the sales data is finally catching up to the culture.”

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UAE National Security Advisor, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan meets with U.S. President Donald Trump in the White House on March 18, 2025.

Courtesy: Donald J. Trump | Via Truth Social

As artificial intelligence startups raise increasingly large sums of cash to fund their swelling infrastructure needs, they’re turning to strategic partners like Nvidia and big venture firms such as Thrive Capital, Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz.

But one major financier has a name that’s less familiar in the world of tech investing: MGX.

Backed by Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund and launched in March 2024, MGX has emerged as a key source of capital as hyperscalers Microsoft, Meta and Google, and startups like OpenAI race to build out the enormous computing power needed to meet expected AI demand.

In September, MGX made another big splash, joining Oracle and Silver Lake in President Donald Trump’s push to get TikTok under U.S. control.

And on Wednesday, MGX was back in the news as part of another giant AI deal. MGX is joining investors including Nvidia, Microsoft, BlackRock and Elon Musk’s xAI in purchasing Aligned Data Centers for $40 billion, the largest global data center deal to date. Aligned designs and operates facilities across North and South America.

MGX was formed out of a joint venture between Group 42 (G42), a tech holding company based in the United Arab Emirates, and Mubadala Investment Company. Despite the geopolitical concerns that come with bringing vast amounts of Middle Eastern money into critical U.S. infrastructure, tech companies are welcoming MGX and its deep pockets into the fold.

MGX’s first major announcement in the U.S. landed in the fall of 2024, not quite two years after OpenAI’s ChatGPT set the generative AI boom in motion.

In its initial deal, MGX joined a consortium — now called AI Infrastructure Partnership (AIP) — formed by firms including BlackRock and Microsoft, to spend $100 billion on AI infrastructure, primarily in the U.S. Separately, Microsoft invested $1.5 billion in G42 to develop AI technologies in the Middle East, with G42 using Microsoft’s Azure cloud service to power it all.

The AIP consortium is also MGX’s avenue into the latest deal for Aligned.

MGX has since joined as a partner in Stargate, the $500 billion Trump-endorsed joint venture with OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank to build AI infrastructure across the U.S. According to PitchBook, MGX has also invested in numerous companies over the past year, including Databricks, Anthropic and xAI. Its chairman is Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the national security advisor of the UAE and a brother of the country’s president.

Certain transactions suggest a level of coziness with Trump.

Earlier this year, MGX reportedly provided $2 billion in funding to the crypto exchange Binance, using a cryptocurrency purchased from the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial. Al Nahyan also visited President Trump in the White House this spring to announce a $1.4 trillion investment in the U.S. over the next decade.

‘Backdoor deal’

And then came TikTok.

On Sept. 25, Trump signed an executive order backing a proposed deal to keep the social media app, owned by China’s ByteDance, running in the U.S.

ByteDance faced an ultimatum under a federal law, passed with bipartisan support from members of Congress, requiring it to either divest the platform’s American business or be shut down in the U.S.

As part of Trump’s executive order, MGX joined with Oracle and Silver Lake to take a combined 45% of TikTok USA, though details still haven’t been officially announced.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., blasted the arrangement.

“MGX – a shady Abu Dhabi firm – has already cut deals to get sensitive American technology while enriching the Trump family’s crypto firm,” Warren said in a statement last month. “The American people deserve to know if the President has struck another backdoor deal for this billionaire takeover of TikTok.”

Representatives for MGX, OpenAI, Microsoft and BlackRock declined to comment for this story.

The steel frame of data centers under construction during a tour of the OpenAI data center in Abilene, Texas, U.S., Sept. 23, 2025.

Shelby Tauber | Reuters

Patrick Moorhead, an analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, said tech companies in the U.S. may need to partner with Middle East firms on AI in order to keep them from instead working with our chief international adversary.

“I believe in the Middle East… we either provide the goods or they will go to China,” Moorhead said.

Moorhead added that MGX is following the same playbook as Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. They’re trying to diversify away from oil, and AI is one area where they can put money to work.

“The amount of capital required is astronomical,” Moorhead said. “And they’re willing to take the risks.”

Even though tech giants like Microsoft, Meta and Amazon have enough cash to fund their AI ambitions, additional resources are always welcome. That’s also why many AI leaders are renting AI capacity from companies like CoreWeave instead of building it all themselves.

“I think they will find real acceptance among VCs because people are comfortable with sovereign wealth,” said Bradley Tusk, a venture capitalist and co-founder of Tusk Ventures. “This is a tough fundraising environment, so they’re a potentially good source of capital.”

Tusk warned that MGX could get entangled in U.S. politics and the perception that it’s too close to the Trump administration, which could be problematic if a Democrat is in the White House in the coming years.

“I think the biggest risk is that the only narrative right now is they are Trump’s friends,” Tusk said.

WATCH: Oracle, OpenAI and SoftBank unveil $400 billion Stargate data center expansion.

CORRECTION: This story has been updated to show that Bradley Tusk’s firm is Tusk Ventures. A previous version of the story incorrectly stated the name of the company.

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Samuel Boivin | Nurphoto | Getty Images

The U.S. and China have reached a “framework” deal for social media platform TikTok, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Monday.

“It’s between two private parties, but the commercial terms have been agreed upon,” he said from U.S.-China talks in Madrid.

Both President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping will speak on Friday to discuss the terms. Trump also said in a Truth Social post Monday that a deal was reached “on a ‘certain’ company that young people in our Country very much wanted to save.”

Bessent indicated the framework could pivot the platform to U.S.-controlled ownership.

TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

China’s lead trade negotiator, Li Chenggang, confirmed the framework deal was in place and said the U.S. should not continue to suppress Chinese companies, according to Reuters.

The remarks came during the latest round of trade discussions between the U.S. and China. Relations have soured between the two countries in recent months from Trump’s tariffs and other trade restrictions.

At the same time, TikTok parent company ByteDance faces a Sept. 17 deadline to divest the platform’s U.S. business or potentially be shut down in the country.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said Monday that the deadline may need to be pushed back to get the deal signed, but there won’t be ongoing extensions.

Congress passed a law last year prohibiting app store operators like Apple and Google from distributing TikTok in the U.S. due to its “foreign adversary-controlled application” status.

But Trump postponed the shutdown in January, signing an executive order that gave ByteDance 75 more days to make a deal. Further extensions came by way of executive orders in April and in June.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in July that TikTok would shutter for Americans if China doesn’t give the U.S. more autonomy over the popular short-form video app.

As for who controls the platform, Trump told Fox News in June that he had a group of “very wealthy people” ready to buy the app and could reveal their identities in two weeks. The reveal never came.

He has previously said he’d be open to Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison or Tesla CEO Elon Musk buying TikTok in the U.S. Artificial intelligence startup Perplexity has submitted a bid for an acquisition, as has businessman Frank McCourt’s Project Liberty internet advocacy group, CNBC reported in January.

Trump told CNBC in an interview last year that he believed the platform was a national security threat, although the White House started a TikTok account in August.

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The TikTok logo is seen in this illustration taken on Aug. 22, 2022.

Dado Ruvic | Reuters

A judge this week rejected TikTok’s attempt to dismiss a lawsuit by the state of New Hampshire accusing it of using manipulative design features aimed at children and teens.

“The Court’s decision is an important step toward holding TikTok accountable for unlawful practices that put children at risk,” state Attorney General John Formella said in a statement Friday.

In his ruling Tuesday, New Hampshire Superior Court Judge John Kissinger Jr. said the state’s allegations were valid and specific enough to proceed, writing the civil claims were “based on the App’s alleged defective and dangerous features” and not the content in the app.

The state alleges that social media platform TikTok is intentionally designed to be addictive and aims to exploit its young user base.

The suit accuses the platform of implementing “addictive design features” meant to keep children engaged longer, increasing their exposure to advertisements and prompting purchases through TikTok’s e-commerce platform TikTok Shop.

A TikTok spokesperson said in a statement Friday that the suit “presents outdated and cherry-picked claims.”

“We continue to provide robust safety protections and screen time limits for teen accounts enabled by default, Family Pairing tools for parents to supervise their teens, strict livestreaming requirements, and proactive ongoing enforcement of our Community Guidelines,” the spokesperson said.

The case is the latest example of attorneys general targeting design elements and safety policies from tech companies instead of the content on the platforms, which is created by other users.

Meta was accused by several states of implementing addictive features across its family of apps that have detrimental effects on children’s mental health.

New Mexico filed a lawsuit against Snapchat in September, alleging the app was creating an environment where “predators can easily target children through sextortion schemes.”

In April, social-messaging platform Discord was sued by the New Jersey attorney general over misleading consumers about child safety features.

Congress has attempted to take action on regulating social media platforms, but to no avail. The Kids Online Safety Act was reintroduced to Congress in May after stalling in 2024.

The measure would require social media platforms to have a “duty of care” to prevent their products from harming children.

TikTok’s latest legal hurdle comes as its future in the U.S. remains uncertain.

In April 2024, former President Joe Biden signed a law requiring ByteDance to divest of TikTok or see the app banned in the U.S. The app was removed from Apple and Google app stores in January ahead of President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Since taking office, Trump has postponed enforcement of the ban and continued to push back deadlines.

In June, Trump granted ByteDance more time to sell off its U.S. TikTok operations, marking his third extension. The updated deadline is now set for Sept. 17.

Trump also said in June that a group of “very wealthy people” is ready to buy TikTok and told reporters that he would be having discussions with China about a potential deal.

TikTok is now building a new version of its app for U.S. users, according to The Information. The stand-alone app is expected to operate on a separate algorithm and data system, Reuters said.

TikTok refuted the Reuters report, calling it “factually inaccurate.”

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