Mark Zuckerberg's Meta has reportedly laid off hundreds of workers under its VR division. The layoffs come amid a failure by the division to turn a profit, having incurred billions of dollars in losses since its inception.
In a report by The Wall Street Journal this week, Meta laid off around 1,500 workers under its Reality Labs division. Reality Labs is the department working on Meta's virtual reality products. As a result of these layoffs, three VR game studios were shut down, with only Horizon Worlds remaining as it works on Meta's online VR platform but in a scaled-down capacity.
Billions in Losses
This means that almost 10 per cent of the division's staff were affected, a drastic change following the company's shift towards AI and its AI devices.
'We said last month that we were shifting some of our investment from Metaverse towards wearables,' a spokesman for Meta told the Wall Street Journal. 'This is part of that effort.'
The layoffs by Meta also follow reports that the VR division had lost the company over $77 billion (estimated £57.3 billion) since it was formed in 2020. For Meta to finally shelve its Metaverse since rebranding to its name in 2021, was a decision analysts say was smart, yet done too late. Zuckerberg had already appeared to distance himself from Metaverse in 2023.
It remains to be seen whether Meta will succeed this time by shifting towards AI and AI devices.
A few highlights from September:
— Meta Newsroom (@MetaNewsroom) October 3, 2025
- We launched new AI glasses (Meta Ray-Ban Display and Oakley Meta Vanguard),
- Expanded access to Llama AI to support government agencies and US national security efforts,
- Rolled out our School Partnership Program,
- And more… pic.twitter.com/zZGmretpXX
Illegal Gambling Ads Under Scrutiny
The UK Gambling Commission said that Meta is allegedly looking the other way when it comes to illegal gambling sites being allowed to advertise on Facebook and Instagram, according to Bloomberg. In remarks at an ICE gambling conference in Barcelona on Monday, the commission's executive director Tim Miller said they have been looking into Meta's searchable ad library for operators that do not have a licence yet are targeting people in the UK.
'Anyone who spends even a little time on their platforms will more than likely have seen ads appearing in your feed of illegal online casinos,' said Miller, referring to Zuckerberg's company. 'Most notably, and perhaps most worryingly, many of these aimed at GB users are for the so-called "not on gamstop" sites. These are targeted at consumers that have taken the often difficult step to self-exclude from online gambling through the use of GamStop, Britain's multi-operator self-exclusion scheme.'
Miller continued, 'Companies like Meta will tell you that they don't tolerate the advertising of illegal sites and will remove them if they are notified about them. But that approach suggests that they don't know about those ads unless alerted. That is simply false.'
'It's effectively a window into criminality,' said Miller. 'If we can find them then so can Meta: they simply choose not to look.
Meta Ray-Ban Display + Meta Neural Band = our most advanced pair of AI glasses. Ever. pic.twitter.com/PlrVcwbprN
— Meta (@Meta) September 18, 2025
A separate investigation found that Meta is running illegal gambling advertisements in countries where they are outlawed. This includes India, Malaysia, and Saudi Arabia. The UK Gambling Commission is among the growing number of regulators that are trying to step up in their efforts against illegal gambling operators targeting local consumers while bypassing local laws and safeguards.
The UK has shut down hundreds of thousands of sites linked to unlicensed gambling operators and issued cease-and-desist notices.
