Meta Platforms saw its shares rise about 3 percent on Thursday after Bloomberg reported that CEO Mark Zuckerberg is planning substantial reductions to the company’s metaverse investments.
The report cited unnamed sources familiar with internal discussions, saying executives have considered cutting the budget for the unit by as much as 30 percent. Proposed reductions are expected to include layoffs and are part of the company’s 2026 budget planning, likely affecting Meta’s virtual reality group.
The potential cuts come amid ongoing financial challenges for Meta’s Reality Labs division, which develops the Quest family of VR headsets and Ray-Ban and Oakley AI smart glasses. The unit posted a $4.4 billion loss in the most recent quarter, adding to more than $70 billion in cumulative losses since late 2020, according to the company’s third-quarter report.
Meta, which changed its name from Facebook in October 2021 to emphasize a shift beyond social media, has long highlighted the metaverse as a central area of growth. At the time, Zuckerberg said, “the metaverse is the next frontier just like social networking was when we got started.”
The company declined to comment on Bloomberg’s report, leaving investors to speculate on how deep the cuts could go and how they may affect future development of virtual reality products.
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