It turns out Mark Zuckerberg does have a breaking point with spending on Meta's metaverse ambitions

Hardware teams at Meta's Reality Labs were asked to trim spending by almost 20% into 2026, The Information reported.

• Meta is reportedly implementing cost-cutting measures at Reality Labs, its division for VR, AR, and the metaverse.
• The division has been asked to reduce spending, The Information reports.
• The purse tightening marks a big shift from before, as the metaverse is Zuck's costly pet project.

Mark Zuckerberg is reportedly reeling in spending on his big bet at Meta.

The company is tightening its purse strings for Reality Labs, its division for VR, AR, and the metaverse, The Information reported Thursday.

Hardware teams in the division have been asked to trim spending by nearly 20% from this year into 2026, according to The Information, which cited a former Reality Labs manager.

This follows layoffs over the past year in the division, largely targeting middle and senior managers, and which included more than a dozen vice presidents and directors last month, The Information reported.

Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Meta has spent upwards of $40 billion on the metaverse, Zuckerberg's costly pet project. Meta's CFO told the division earlier this year that it should be targeting a $1 trillion opportunity in AR and VR, The Information reported. Meta currently sells its Quest line of headsets and its Meta RayBans AI glasses, though some fancy AR glasses are on the way.

On a call with analysts last year, the Meta CEO said the metaverse was a "very long-term bet."

"I can't guarantee you that I'm gonna be right about this bet," he said. "I do think that this is the direction that the world is going in."

When Zuckerberg proclaimed 2023 Meta's "year of efficiency," however, he noted Reality Labs would be subject to cost-cutting measures just like any other division.

"We're looking at the signals and learning what makes sense to do going forward," he said last year. "We're constantly shifting how we execute. Other things like flattening the org structure, those are going to affect the whole company, both in Reality Labs and Family of Apps. We want the work to be more efficient."

Zuckerberg renamed Facebook as Meta in 2021 and said it would become a "metaverse company."

"From now on, we'll be metaverse first, not Facebook first," he said at the time.