Meta is laying off hundreds of employees as it pours money into AI
Meta is laying off hundreds of employees across its company, according to reports from The New York Times, NBC News, and The Information. The job cuts impact workers on Meta’s recruiting, social media, and sales teams, along with Reality Labs, the division that develops the company’s smart glasses and virtual reality headsets.
“Teams across Meta regularly restructure or implement changes to ensure they’re in the best position to achieve their goals,” Meta spokesperson Tracy Clayton says in an emailed statement to The Verge. “Where possible, we are finding other opportunities for employees whose positions may be impacted.”
Clayton declined to specify how many roles are impacted. Meta had almost 79,000 workers as of December 2025.
Meta has been distancing itself from its “metaverse” namesake in recent months, with the company projected to spend as much as $135 billion as it continues its AI data center buildout and snags a deal to use Arm’s first CPU in them.
The company also laid off at least 1,000 workers on its Reality Labs team in January, shuttered three VR studios, axed its work-focused metaverse platform, and halted new content for its VR fitness app Supernatural. In February, Meta said it would shut down the VR version of its 3D social platform Horizon Worlds before reversing the decision weeks later, saying it will be available to download “for the foreseeable future.”
