Meta Reportedly Cuts 1500 People In Reality Labs Division

A Meta spokesman told the Wall Street Journal that the layoffs were in line with the company’s strategy to shift investment from Metaverse to wearables.

• Meta has reportedly laid off about 10% of its staff from the Reality Labs division, including those working on Metaverse. 
• An earlier report from The New York Times had said Meta’s chief technology officer Andrew Bosworth had called for a meeting on Wednesday and urged staff to attend in person.
• Meta recently announced a new initiative, Meta Compute, to expand its artificial intelligence infrastructure and appointed Dina Powell McCormick as its new President and Vice Chairman.

Meta Platforms Inc. (META) has reportedly laid off about 10% of its staff, or 1,500 people, from the Reality Labs division.

According to a report from The Wall Street Journal that cited a person familiar with the matter, the layoffs include those working on metaverse.

A Meta spokesman told WSJ that the move was in line with the company’s strategy to shift some of its investment from metaverse toward wearables.

Shares of META were down 2.4% on Wednesday at the time of writing. 

Meta’s Pivot To Wearables

An earlier report from The New York Times had reported the potential job cuts and touted that the decision would be announced by Tuesday.

Meta’s chief technology officer Andrew Bosworth, leading the Reality Labs division, had reportedly called for a meeting on Wednesday and even urged staff to attend in person, adding that it would be the “most important” meeting of the year.

The news comes as Meta announced a new top-level initiative, Meta Compute, to expand its artificial intelligence infrastructure. Earlier this week, the tech giant also appointed Dina Powell McCormick as its new President and Vice Chairman, in a move to bolster its AI initiatives.

The pivot from its focus on V.R.-based social networking to artificial intelligence comes as Meta’s peers like OpenAI and Google have zoomed past the company in terms of AI initiatives. Reality Labs, which works on metaverse and other AR/VR initiatives, was once at the center of CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s priorities. However, since 2021, the division has reportedly accumulated losses of over $70 billion.

Meanwhile, Meta’s wearables division has been gaining footing in the market. Its AI-equipped Ray-Ban smartglasses have reportedly sold over 2 million pairs since its launch. In 2025, Meta announced an investment of $600 billion in the U.S. by 2028 to build AI data centers.

How Did Stocktwits Users React?

On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around META stock jumped to ‘bullish’ from ‘bearish’ territory over the past 24 hours amid ‘high’ message volumes. The stock was also among the top trending on Stocktwits at the time of writing.

One user called Reality Labs ‘a failed investment.’

Shares of META have gained about 3.7% in the past year.

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