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Some Meta employees received a message on Tuesday night directing them to work remotely on Wednesday, two sources who received the email told Business Insider.
Employees in Meta's wearables and ads divisions got the notes, said the two sources. The short HR email said leadership would share more information.
Meta's wearables unit, which includes AI glasses and its augmented reality business, is one of the company's "several key investment areas" for 2026, per its latest earnings report.
A spokesperson for Meta declined to comment.
The note comes as the company gears up for layoffs. Business Insider reported earlier this month that some managers were tasked with drawing up cost-cutting plans.
According to Reuters, which first reported the layoffs, a fifth or more of Meta employees could be let go. The tech giant employed nearly 79,000 people at the end of 2025, which could translate to about 16,000 job cuts.
The possible changes come as the $1.5 trillion company is investing big in AI, including in senior leadership.
Meta laid off roughly 10% to 15% of its employees in its Reality Labs group in January as it continues to shift strategy away from the Metaverse.
On Tuesday, Meta detailed significant stock-based compensation programs for senior leaders — not including CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The plan includes an increased number of restricted stock units that vest over time, and tens of thousands of stock options that give them the right to purchase shares at lofty future targets, with a deadline of March 2031.
Meta's stock is down nearly 3% in the last year.
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Pranav Dixit is the Meta Correspondent at Business Insider based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He writes about Meta’s products, policies, and internal workings while examining how the company’s decisions shape how billions of people connect and communicate.Previously, Pranav was the India-based technology correspondent for BuzzFeed News, covering the impact of Silicon Valley’s largest companies on the culture, society, and politics of more than a billion people in South Asia. He has also been a senior news editor at Engadget and ran technology coverage at the Hindustan Times, one of India’s largest national newspapers.Pranav’s reporting has shed light on the human consequences of Big Tech’s quest for growth in emerging markets, and sparked widespread conversations about the impact of American technology companies on the Global South. In 2019, he won Syracuse University’s Mirror Award for a boots-on-the-ground feature about how WhatsApp misinformation sparked gruesome lynchings in rural India. He has also reported from Kashmir, a volatile geopolitical hotspot, documenting the world’s longest-running internet shutdown.His work has been widely cited by major national and international publications, and he has been featured on the BBC, Al Jazeera, and podcasts such as Vox Media’s Land of the Giants to discuss his work. He has also spoken in journalism classes including at UC Berkeley’s graduate journalism program. His writing has appeared in The Guardian, Vox, Time, The Information, and Al Jazeera.Pranav moved to the United States in 2021 from New Delhi, India, to be a fellow at Harvard University’s Nieman Foundation for Journalism, where he studied the evolution of the American tech press and ways newsrooms around the world can cover technology and society more effectively.Got a tip about Meta or anything else in Silicon Valley? Contact Pranav via encrypted messaging app Signal (+1408-905-9124), or email him at pdixit@insider.com or pranavdixit@protonmail.com. You can also reach him on WhatsApp at +857-753-3949 or DM him on X (@PranavDixit) or BlueSky (@pranavdixit.bsky.social).Pranav keeps sources anonymous. Please use a non-work device to reach out.Expertise: Meta, Facebook, WhatsApp, Llama, AI, Threads, Instagram, Mark Zuckerberg, social media, platforms, immigration
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