Meta is cutting hundreds of jobs across multiple divisions, according to The Verge AI, citing reports from The New York Times, NBC News, and The Information. The layoffs hit recruiting, social media, sales teams, and Reality Labs, the unit behind Meta’s smart glasses and VR headsets.
Meta spokesperson Tracy Clayton confirmed the restructuring but declined to share specific numbers. “Teams across Meta regularly restructure or implement changes to ensure they’re in the best position to achieve their goals,” Clayton said. “Where possible, we are finding other opportunities for employees whose positions may be impacted.”
As of December 2025, Meta employed almost 79,000 people.
The Pattern Is Clear
This isn’t an isolated event. It’s the latest move in a steady retreat from the metaverse vision that once defined the company’s rebrand. Consider what’s happened in just the past few months:
- January: At least 1,000 Reality Labs employees were laid off
- Three VR studios were shut down entirely
- Horizon Workrooms, the work-focused metaverse platform, was axed
- Supernatural, the VR fitness app, stopped receiving new content
- February: Meta announced it would shut down the VR version of Horizon Worlds, then reversed course weeks later, saying it would remain available “for the foreseeable future”
That last one tells you everything about the internal confusion. Announcing a shutdown and then walking it back within weeks isn’t strategy. It’s cleanup mode.
Where the Money Is Going Instead
While VR and metaverse teams shrink, Meta’s AI ambitions are scaling fast. The company is projected to spend as much as $135 billion on AI data center buildout, including a deal to use Arm’s first CPU in those facilities.
That’s a staggering figure, and it signals where Mark Zuckerberg sees the company’s future. Meta isn’t just dabbling in AI. It’s making one of the largest infrastructure bets in tech history. The company is effectively reallocating resources from its metaverse experiment to an AI-first strategy.
Why This Matters
For the AI industry, Meta’s spending spree reinforces a trend we’ve watched accelerate throughout 2025 and into 2026: the biggest tech companies are treating AI infrastructure as a must-win arms race. $135 billion doesn’t leave much room for side projects.
For Meta employees, the message is harder. Entire divisions are being reshaped around a new priority, and “finding other opportunities” only goes so far when the teams you built your career on are being dismantled.
What stands out here is the speed and scale of the pivot. Two years ago, Zuckerberg was telling the world the metaverse was the next computing platform. Now Reality Labs is getting cut after cut while AI data centers get blank checks.
The full details are available in The Verge AI’s original reporting.