Meta lays off 8,000 in AI pivot as morale cracks

Meta began notifying roughly 8,000 employees — about 10% of its global workforce — that their jobs were eliminated on Wednesday, in cuts the company said are needed to fund its artificial intelligence buildout.nytimes +1 The notifications rolled out in three waves starting at 4 a.m. local time in Singapore, with U.S. and U.K. staff hit later in the morning.nytimes +1 Meta is also canceling plans to fill 6,000 open roles and reassigning another 7,000 workers into AI-focused jobs.cnbc +1

Zuckerberg frames the cuts as an AI imperative

In a Wednesday memo to staff, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said "AI is the most consequential technology of our lifetimes" and warned that "success isn't a given" for Meta in the race against rivals.cnbc He told employees the company does "not expect other companywide layoffs this year," while conceding Meta has not been "as clear as we aspire to be" with workers.cnbc Teams working on AI infrastructure, foundation models and AI monetization were largely shielded; cybersecurity, content design and the integrity team that polices hate speech bore the brunt.cnbc +1

Morale was already cracking before the cuts

The layoffs landed atop a tense month inside Meta. Fliers for a petition against the company's new program to track employee data for AI training papered office walls, and more than 1,500 staffers signed it before Wednesday.nytimes +1 On internal forums, hundreds of workers reacted to the layoffs with salad emojis — a stand-in for "salute."nytimes Blind data shows Meta's overall employee rating has fallen 25% from a 2024 peak, with culture ratings down 39%.cnbc Median total compensation has dropped by nearly $30,000, and one policy employee told Wired the U.S. workforce feels it is "being used to train the AI models that will replace them."aljazeera

Part of a wider AI-driven payroll purge

The cuts come as Meta's capital expenditures are projected to hit $125 billion to $145 billion this year, more than double 2025 levels, much of it routed to the Meta Superintelligence initiative and new data centers.aljazeera U.S. workers are getting 16 weeks of severance plus two additional weeks per year of service.aljazeera Meta is far from alone: Cisco said last week it would cut roughly 4,000 jobs in its own AI realignment, Microsoft has opened voluntary buyouts for the first time in its history, and a recent Goldman Sachs survey pegged AI-related layoffs at more than 16,000 per month in 2026.cnbc +1 Meta shares were up 0.1% in midday trading.aljazeera

Image: reuters.com