Mark Zuckerberg is shutting down the metaverse project, having spent $80 billion on it
The total losses on the project amounted to $80 billion.
This is according to Quartz.
Support for the VR platform on Quest devices will end by mid-June 2026, and the app will disappear from the store by the end of March.
The project was launched in 2021 following Facebook’s rebranding to Meta and was a key bet on the new future of the internet.
It was envisaged that the metaverse would become a new social environment where users would interact via virtual reality devices.
However, expectations were not met: Horizon Worlds’ audience never exceeded a few hundred thousand active users per month.
The company’s metaverse division, Reality Labs, was spending huge sums with no hope of turning a profit.
In 2026, Meta began winding down the division — in January, 1,500 Reality Labs staff were made redundant, several internal VR studios were closed, the budget for VR divisions was cut by 30%, and the VR fitness service Supernatural (acquired for $400 million) ceased producing content.
The company states that it is not abandoning virtual reality entirely and will continue to develop VR devices, particularly smart glasses.
Zuckerberg is now focusing on artificial intelligence.
In 2025, Meta allocated over $60 billion to the construction of data centres and infrastructure. AI-related expenditure could reach up to $135 billion in 2026.
