STORY: Investors rushed to buy shares of Meta on Wednesday, adding more than $75 billion dollars to its market cap after CEO Mark Zuckerberg pledged a ‘Year of Efficiency” for the company, where it would slash spending and ramp up share buybacks to the tune of $40 billion.

The parent of Instagram and Facebook projected first-quarter sales that could beat Wall Street estimates while also paring back costs by $5 billion.

Zuckerberg spent much of last year placing experimental and costly bets on his metaverse project costs spiked and revenue fell for the first time.

However in a Wednesday conference call he described 2023 as “a phase change”.

Meta said in a statement the cuts reflect its updated plans for lower data center construction expenses and a company structure that supports both AI and non-AI work.

The focus on cost-cutting comes after Meta cut jobs for 11,000 people in November a precursor to thousands more layoffs in the wider tech industry afterward.

Zuckerberg said monetization efficiency for Reels on Facebook had doubled in the past six months, and the business was on track to break even roughly a year from now, and to grow profitably after that.