Meta Plans Mass Layoffs: Up to 16,000 Jobs at Stake
According to a Reuters report, the Facebook-owned company Meta is considering massive job cuts that could affect up to 20 percent or more of its entire workforce. With recently nearly 79,000 employees, this would mean the elimination of around 15,000 to 16,000 jobs. The background is Meta’s multi-billion-dollar bet on artificial intelligence, which is putting the company under enormous cost pressure.
What is known so far
Three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters that leadership has already begun internal planning for the job cuts. Top executives are said to have informed other senior employees about the plans and asked them to identify concrete cost-saving opportunities. An exact date for the layoffs has not yet been set, and the final scale remains open.
“This is speculative reporting about theoretical approaches.” (Meta spokesperson to Reuters)
Should Meta actually target the 20 percent mark, it would be the largest layoffs since the so-called “Year of Efficiency” in late 2022 and early 2023. At that time, the company cut a total of around 21,000 positions in two waves.
Zuckerberg’s gigantic AI bet
The actual driver behind the impending job cuts is Meta’s aggressive investment strategy in artificial intelligence. For 2025, Meta has budgeted between 115 and 135 billion US dollars for AI infrastructure, including data centers, proprietary chips, and spectacular talent acquisitions. In June 2025, Zuckerberg brought Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang into the company through a 14.3 billion dollar investment and appointed him Chief AI Officer.
In parallel, Meta is struggling not to fall behind in the race for the most powerful AI models. The new flagship model with the codename “Avocado” has already been delayed multiple times and is now expected to launch no earlier than May 2026. Internal tests show that it lags behind models from Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic in key areas such as logical reasoning, software development, and autonomous action. The situation is so serious that Meta executives have even considered temporarily licensing Google’s Gemini to support their own AI products.
AI as justification for job cuts
Meta is not alone in this development. Numerous technology companies justify current waves of layoffs with the use of AI, which increasingly replaces human work. Critics, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, however, speak of “AI-washing”: many companies use AI merely as a pretext to justify job cuts that actually stem from over-hiring during the pandemic boom years.
In Meta’s case, both are likely true. On one hand, the sheer scale of AI investments forces savings elsewhere. On the other hand, the company is undergoing a fundamental strategic shift: away from being an open-source pioneer with the Llama model series, toward proprietary, paid AI products that are supposed to generate direct revenue. This change of course comes with significant internal restructuring, including the layoff of hundreds of employees from the research unit FAIR and the departure of AI chief scientist Yann LeCun.
What is at stake
- Affected positions: Up to 20 percent of the workforce, potentially 15,000 to 16,000 of nearly 79,000 employees
- Timeline: No date set yet, planning underway internally
- AI budget 2025: 115 to 135 billion US dollars for infrastructure and development
- Strategic shift: Moving away from open source, turning toward commercial proprietary models
- Comparison 2022/23: At that time, a total of around 21,000 positions were cut in two rounds
Whether and to what extent the layoffs will actually happen remains to be seen. What is clear, however, is that Meta is in a phase of profound restructuring in which the enormous costs of its AI ambitions are putting pressure on the entire company.
