Meta Planning Sweeping Layoffs That Could Hit 20% of Its Workforce

Meta is preparing layoffs that could affect 20% or more of its nearly 79,000 employees, according to Reuters. The cuts are meant to offset massive AI infrastructure spending, which has ballooned as Meta races to compete in the AI arms race.

The AI Cost Problem

Meta has been spending aggressively on AI. The company committed up to $72 billion on AI infrastructure in 2025 alone, acquiring companies and talent at premium prices. Sam Altman has publicly said that Meta tried to poach OpenAI staff with $100 million offers. That kind of spending has to come from somewhere.

A Meta spokesperson called the reporting "speculative" and about "theoretical approaches." The company has done this before. In November 2022, Meta cut 11,000 jobs, followed by another 10,000 in March 2023.

AI-Washing?

The announcement fits a pattern across tech. Block recently cut 40% of its workforce, Atlassian laid off 1,600, and WiseTech announced 2,000 cuts. All pointed to AI as the catalyst.

Not everyone buys the narrative. Even Altman has suggested many of these cuts are "AI-washing," where executives use AI as convenient cover for addressing over-hiring during the pandemic era. Bloomberg has called the trend "corrosive and confusing."

Whether AI is genuinely making these roles redundant or providing political cover for cost-cutting, the result is the same: tens of thousands of tech workers losing their jobs while companies pour billions into AI infrastructure.