Meta is laying off several hundred employees across Reality Labs, recruiting, sales, and global operations. The cuts, confirmed on March 25, hit at least five divisions and follow roughly 1,500 Reality Labs layoffs in January.
The timing is blunt. Meta's 2026 capital expenditure forecast sits between $115 billion and $135 billion - nearly double the $72 billion it spent in 2025. The bulk goes toward data centers and Nvidia GPUs to power its Llama AI models and a new internal group called Superintelligence Labs. Total projected expenses for 2026: $162 to $169 billion.
So Meta is simultaneously cutting people and writing its largest infrastructure checks ever. Wall Street approves. Meta's stock rose nearly 3% when reports of potential 20% workforce reductions surfaced in mid-March. The market's message is clear: spend on GPUs, not headcount.
The Numbers in Context
Meta ended 2025 with 78,865 employees. Reality Labs alone has burned through roughly $90 billion in cumulative operating losses since its creation, including $19.2 billion in 2025. The division is pivoting from VR headsets toward smart glasses and wearable AI, which explains why three VR game studios (Twisted Pixel, Sanzaru Games, and Armature Studio) were shut down in January.
These cuts are part of a broader pattern across tech. Over 45,000 tech jobs have been eliminated globally in Q1 2026, with AI cited as a factor in at least one-fifth of cases. The story repeating across the industry is the same one playing out at Meta: companies are reallocating budget from people to compute.
Some of the affected Meta employees will be offered positions in other divisions or the option to relocate. For the rest, the message from the industry's biggest employers is increasingly clear: the AI buildout takes priority.