Video interview shows Facebook VP explaining how he can't drink his coffee without lifting his 'wretched' virtual-reality headset and making his metaverse avatar stare awkwardly at the ceiling

• Facebook exec Nick Clegg called Meta headsets "bulky" and "wretched" in a recent interview.
• Meta's Quest headsets allow users to enter the "metaverse," a virtual space central to the company's vision.

One of the top execs at Facebook's parent company, Meta, called its Quest virtual reality headsets "bulky" and "wretched" in a recent interview.

Nick Clegg, Meta's vice president for global affairs and communications, made the remarks while using the technology during an interview with the Financial Times on Thursday. The former UK Deputy Prime Minister was showing how the VR headset enables users to enter the "metaverse," or a virtual space where humans can interact with each other online using avatars.

As the interview began, Clegg mentioned how the Meta Quest headsets don't allow users to easily drink while in the metaverse.

"If I'm lifting my head, it's because I'm drinking my coffee and this wretched headset is too bulky for me to drink my coffee without moving my headset. So don't think I'm craning my head weirdly," Clegg said.

—Henry Mance (@henrymance) December 16, 2021

Clegg serves as one of Mark Zuckerberg's closest confidants after he left UK politics for Facebook in 2018. The exec helped Zuckerberg announce Facebook's rebrand to Meta and outlined the firm's vision for the metaverse in October.

Elsewhere in the interview, Clegg talked about Facebook's decision to indefinitely suspend Trump, career regrets from his time in government, telling Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg upon meeting them that people think they hold too much power "and don't care," and the promise and moderation responsibilities of the metaverse.

Mark Zuckerberg is betting big on the metaverse transforming how people interact with each other online, and focused Facebook's rebrand to Meta around the new mixed-reality technology.

The size and weight of virtual reality headsets has long been a concern for hardware companies in the space as they seek to balance the tradeoffs of trying to squeeze cutting-edge tech into a form factor worn on the head.

Zuckerberg has said he envisions the VR headsets shrinking to the size of eye glasses, but the technology would take at least several more years to produce.

Louis Rosenberg, a 30-year augmented reality veteran and CEO of Unanimous AI, told Insider's Katie Canales he expects AR glasses will replace smart phones as the primary means of interacting with digital content within 10 years.

Meta was not immediately available for additional comment.