They are throwing away $20BN/year on Reality Labs. For that money, they could pay cash to buy someone like Paramount Skydance. META is an ad business that is competing against GOOG. They have nothing currently that is competitive to YouTube.
Parmount's stock is down 40% from its 52 week high with a market cap of $12.5BN. WBD's market cap is $70.8BN. The window to buy WBD has closed. Without that deal, David Ellison's reason to buy Paramount has fallen apart.