Mark Zuckerberg’s relentless push into artificial intelligence has slammed Meta’s workforce with fresh pain. The company plans to axe 10% of its employees—roughly 8,000 people—starting May 20. And it’s scrapping 6,000 open positions too. This brutal math emerged from an internal memo that Bloomberg first revealed, which Meta confirmed. Chief people officer Janelle Gale wrote, “We’re doing this as part of our continued effort to run the company more efficiently and to allow us to offset the other investments we’re making.” Those investments? A staggering $115 billion to $135 billion on AI infrastructure this year alone, up from $72 billion last year, according to details in a New York Times report.
U.S. workers face notifications on that grim date, with severance of 16 weeks base pay plus two weeks per year served. International packages mirror this, adjusted locally. Meta ended 2025 with over 78,000 staff, down sharply from a 2022 peak above 87,000. Back then, pandemic-fueled hiring binges gave way to Zuckerberg’s 2023 “year of efficiency,” slashing a third of headcount. January brought 1,500 cuts in Reality Labs, the metaverse and VR unit. Now, AI demands force another reckoning.
Employees aren’t taking it quietly. On Blind, the anonymous app popular with techies, Meta’s forum exploded. One post captured the dread: “How are you motivating yourself to work for the next 1 month with layoffs confirmed?” as quoted in Business Insider. Another called it “28 days of hell.” Posts about AI at Meta have quadrupled negatively since 2024, per Fast Company, branding the mood “dead and depressing.” Workers question why no voluntary buyouts, like Microsoft’s offer to 7% of U.S. staff or Google’s in some units.
Zuckerberg addressed the storm in an all-hands meeting. AI isn’t automating jobs away, he insisted—not yet. “Getting everyone internally to use AI tools and getting to do the work more efficiently is not the thing that’s driving layoffs,” he said, per Reuters. Instead, capex on compute and data centers eats budget. “If we’re investing more in one area to serve our community, then that means we have less capital to allocate to the other. So that means we do need to take down the size of the company somewhat.” Gale couldn’t rule out more cuts: “I’d love to say that there are no more layoffs, but I can’t say something we can’t deliver.” Reuters reported additional reductions slated for late 2026.
Reality Labs remains a bleed. Hundreds more cuts hit sales, recruiting, operations, and social teams earlier this year. But AI wins big: a $14.3 billion Scale AI stake pulled top talent to Meta. In January, Zuckerberg predicted, “We’re starting to see projects that used to require big teams now be accomplished by a single very talented person.” He eyes AI agents overtaking tech work, including coding. Yet in earnings talks, he pushed back on mass replacement: “AI isn’t going to replace people. Instead, I think that AI is going to amplify people’s ability to do what they want.”
Morale craters. Internal forums buzz with outrage over silence on cuts amid AI “transformation” hype and keystroke tracking for model training. Zuckerberg clarified: humans aren’t watching; data gets abstracted. Still, Blind vents multiply. One X post from @Atla5drugg3D fumed, “Why is anyone continuing to work here rather than banding together to burn this company to the fucking ground?” linking the Business Insider piece.
Broader tech echoes the pattern. Microsoft buyouts, Amazon’s widespread axe—over 20,000 potential losses there—signal AI’s labor toll, as CNBC noted. Meta converts payroll to capex, protecting margins amid $135 billion AI outlay, per BBC. Zuckerberg lacks a “crystal ball” for three years out. “We’ll see how all this stuff trends.”
Employees count down. Productivity? Questionable. Some hunker down, updating resumes. Others grind through “AI Week” mandates from March. Teams shrink; small groups wield AI for big output. But trust frays. Layoffs hit contributors, Gale admitted—not easy. As May 20 nears, Meta’s campuses feel the weight. Uncertainty reigns. More blood likely follows.
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