Meta’s stock jumped roughly 8% at the open as investors cheered the company’s plans to trim capital expenditure, a signal that Mark Zuckerberg is finally willing to tighten the purse strings on the parts of his empire that have been hemorrhaging cash.
The metaverse gets a haircut
At the center of the capex reduction is Reality Labs, Meta’s metaverse division. The unit has been proposed for budget cuts of up to 30%, a figure that would have sounded dramatic a couple of years ago but now reads more like overdue maintenance.
Reality Labs generated approximately $2.1B in revenue against $17.7B in operational losses. For every dollar the division brought in, it burned through roughly eight more.
The proposed cuts were first floated in December 2025, and even the initial discussion was enough to lift Meta’s stock by 4-6%.
