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With valuations so high, it didn’t take much for Wall Street to hit pause on the AI trade. What started earlier this week as negative rumblings has grown into something louder and more concerning.

After news got out that Meta had begun a restructuring of its new AI team, the Wall Street Journal reported the company froze hiring in its AI division, fresh off recruiting more than 50 AI researchers and engineers with the lure of massive job offers.

Investors might have welcomed such a halt in big spending had it been another company. After all, the compensation packages, valued at hundreds of millions of dollars across several years, looked like professional athlete money.

But Meta has trumpeted its AI expenditures as proof of its commitment and a reflection of its grand ambitions. In turn, the market applauded. Only Nvidia (NVDA), the chip company supplying the tech platforms, has performed better this year. Meta shares are up more than 25%, outmaneuvering Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) and Microsoft (MSFT), tickers with a more natural AI fit and a technological head start.

Now, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly turned off the spigot. No more 10-year, $252 million A-Rod-style contracts. Worse than the end of the big money contracts, though, is the reason Meta had to offer them in the first place.

A reminder that’s good news for the AI industry, but bad news for Meta.