Welcome to Seeking Alpha's Wall Street Lunch, our afternoon update on today's market action, news, and analysis.

Good afternoon. Today is Thursday, December 4th, and I'm your host, Kim Kahn. Our top story so far,

Metaverse, we hardly knew ye. Meta platform shares are rallying after Bloomberg reported that CEO Mark Zuckerberg

is preparing to make sharp cuts to the company's Metaverse operations. Executives have discussed

budget reductions of up to 30% next year for the group that includes Meta Horizon Worlds and its

Quest Virtual Reality Unit, a move that would likely lead to layoffs as soon as January.

The bulk of the cuts would hit Meta's virtual reality group, which accounts for most

of the company's Metaverse-related spending, though no final decisions have been made.

The proposed reductions are part of Meta's 2026 budget planning, which included a series

of meetings Zuckerberg's Hawaii compound last month, Bloomberg said.

Zuckerberg has asked Meta executives to look for 10% cuts across the board, consistent with

recent budget cycles, but the Metaverse unit was asked to cut deeper this year because

the technology has not generated the level of industry-wide competition the company expected.

A Metaverse effort has drawn scrutiny from investors who view it as a

drain on resources and from watchdogs who have raised concerns about children's privacy and safety

and virtual environments. And is that the echo of footsteps in empty Silicon Valley offices? As Zuckerberg

pivots from the Metaverse to AI, his chief architect is sketching a kind of manifest destiny,

AI stretching from California to France.

Jan Lecun, a renowned artificial intelligence scientist who has an entire page devoted to how to

pronounce his name and is leaving meta to start a new AI company, said his current employer

will not invest in his startup.

The unnamed company may be based outside Silicon Valley,

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