Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg hasn’t been shy when it comes to explaining how costly his march into the metaverse is going to be.

“We expect Reality Labs expenses will increase meaningfully again in 2023,” Zuckerberg told analysts during the company’s last earnings call in October. Meta reported the same day that its Reality Labs, the division tasked with fulfilling the CEO's metaverse dreams, had lost $3.7 billion during the third quarter of 2022. That's expected to jump to $4.4 billion for fourth quarter earnings, which will be announced Wednesday after the close.

Zuckerberg’s desire to be a pivotal player in the yet-to-be-realized immersive digital world — envisioned as a mix of virtual, augmented and mixed reality — are expected to result in a full-year loss of $13.8 billion for Reality Labs alone, according to an average of analysts’ estimates compiled by FactSet.