The social media giant is slashing 10% of its workforce while scrapping 6,000 open roles
The social media giant confirmed Thursday that it will lay off approximately 10% of its global workforce — roughly 8,000 employees — as it continues to pour resources into artificial intelligence. The cuts are set to begin on May 20, according to an internal memo to employees first reported by Bloomberg News. The move is not just about eliminating existing positions.
Meta is also scrapping plans to fill 6,000 open roles it had previously been looking to hire for, meaning the total impact on the company’s headcount will be considerably larger than the layoff number alone suggests.
A familiar pattern with higher stakes
This is not the first time Meta has turned to large-scale workforce reductions to fund a strategic pivot. The company carried out significant layoffs in 2022 and 2023 as it pulled back from its metaverse ambitions and refocused on financial discipline. What is different this time is the destination for those savings — artificial intelligence has become the unambiguous priority for chief executive Mark Zuckerberg and the organization he has built around that vision.
The scale of Meta’s AI ambitions has been well documented. The company has committed to spending aggressively on AI infrastructure, model development and hardware, and Thursday’s announcement makes clear that workforce costs are being restructured to accommodate that spending. Eliminating 8,000 positions and 6,000 planned hires represents a significant reallocation of capital toward a technology the company has publicly described as central to its long-term future.
What the market made of it
Investors did not greet the news with enthusiasm. Meta shares fell roughly 2.4% in midday trading Thursday to $658.40, a reaction that reflects the complexity of how Wall Street processes this kind of announcement. While layoffs often signal cost discipline that can eventually improve margins, the scale of the cuts and the continued ramp-up in AI spending introduce enough uncertainty to give investors pause in the short term.
The broader context matters too. Meta is making this move at a moment when the entire technology industry is navigating an AI spending cycle that shows no signs of slowing down. Rivals including Google, Microsoft and Amazon are all investing heavily in AI infrastructure, and the competitive pressure to keep pace — or stay ahead — is reshaping how every major technology company thinks about its cost structure.
For Meta specifically, the bet is straightforward even if the execution is not: fewer people, more machines, and a company increasingly organized around what artificial intelligence can do rather than what human employees alone can accomplish.
Whether that trade-off delivers the results Zuckerberg is counting on will define the next chapter of one of the world’s most closely watched companies.
Source: CNBC (Jonathan Vanian)