In a vote of confidence in the American image-sharing platform Pinterest’s efforts to tackle “uncertain ad spending,” activist investor Elliott will buy fresh equity worth USD 1 billion, a move that would help the social media company fund a new USD 3.5 billion share buyback initiative.
Elliott Investment Management, which already held a 4.8% stake in the company worth nearly USD 725 million as of December 2025, will also become Pinterest’s biggest shareholder. The buyback, which represents nearly a third of Pinterest’s market value, will significantly reduce the venture’s outstanding shares as well.
The news follows a poor run for Pinterest shares, which tumbled to their lowest levels since the COVID pandemic in February 2026 after the image-sharing platform’s weak forecast stoked investor anxiety.
Pinterest has been struggling to compete with bigger rivals like Meta’s Instagram and Facebook in the online ad market, with major advertisers scaling back spending on the platform amid the lingering AI threat to the industry. It is also rebuilding its sales teams after company-wide layoffs in January. This particular move was meant to power the company’s AI pivot but reportedly failed to impress investors.
To complicate matters, OpenAI has entered the competition by testing ads in ChatGPT, while Google is adding tools for users to buy products directly from AI-powered results in search, along with its Gemini chatbot.
“Pinterest is constrained by legacy monetisation models amid a rapidly evolving AI landscape. The platform retains some differentiation through visual discovery and shopping-focused ad formats, but these advantages are unlikely to fully offset competitive pressures,” Lenny Zephirin, CEO of market research firm Zephirin Group, told Reuters last month.
Elliott, known as one of the world’s most prominent activist investors, brings fresh ideas as well as operational and financial discipline to help struggling businesses boost performance. For its part, Pinterest, which had 619 million users as of December 2025, has stepped up efforts to capitalise on the growing usage of AI-driven shopping tools, despite poor responses from its investors.