Meta Plans Sweeping Layoffs Affecting 20% of Staff as AI Costs Mount

Meta headquarters with layoffs and empty offices

Meta Could Cut 20% of Its Workforce

Meta is planning sweeping layoffs that could affect 20% or more of its roughly 79,000 employees, according to a Reuters exclusive citing three sources familiar with the matter. If Meta settles on the 20% figure, approximately 15,800 people would lose their jobs — making this the company's most significant restructuring since the 2022-2023 "year of efficiency."

No date has been set and the magnitude has not been finalized, but top executives have already told senior leaders to begin planning how to pare back their teams.

Why: The $600 Billion AI Bet

The layoffs are driven by Meta's massive AI infrastructure spending. The company has committed to investing $600 billion to build data centers by 2028, while simultaneously offering enormous pay packages — some worth hundreds of millions of dollars over four years — to recruit top AI researchers for a new superintelligence team.

Recent acquisitions add to the spending: Meta bought Moltbook, a social networking platform for AI agents, and is spending at least $2 billion to acquire Chinese AI startup Manus.

AI Model Struggles Behind the Scenes

The aggressive spending comes despite setbacks with Meta's AI efforts. The company's Llama 4 models faced criticism for misleading benchmark results last year, and Meta ultimately abandoned the release of its largest model, Behemoth. The replacement effort — a new model called Avocado being built by the superintelligence team — has also reportedly lagged expectations.

Part of a Broader Tech Trend

Meta is not alone. The layoffs reflect a broader pattern across major tech companies in 2026:

  • Amazon cut 16,000 jobs (nearly 10% of workforce) in January
  • Block (Jack Dorsey's fintech company) cut nearly half its staff, explicitly citing AI tools
  • Executives across the industry are pointing to AI as enabling companies to "do more with smaller teams"

The Bottom Line

Meta spending $600 billion on AI data centers while firing 20% of its workforce tells you everything about how Big Tech views the future: fewer humans, more machines. Zuckerberg's comment that "projects that used to require big teams can now be accomplished by a single very talented person" is the quiet part said loud. The question nobody at Meta is asking publicly is what happens when those "very talented" remaining employees realize they are next.