Meta began cutting roughly 8,000 employees today — 10% of its global workforce — in the largest single round of layoffs in the company’s history. Notifications went out in waves starting at 4 a.m. local time, rolling from Singapore westward through the U.K. and into the U.S., where North American staff were asked to work from home.

Record Profits, Radical Cuts

Meta is not in financial trouble. The company posted $201 billion in revenue in 2025 (+22% YoY), with $43.6 billion in free cash flow. The cuts are being driven not by losses, but by an aggressive pivot to AI.

Meta has raised its 2026 capital expenditure guidance to $125–$145 billion — nearly double the $72.2 billion spent in 2025 — funding data centers, GPUs, Llama AI models, and a $27 billion joint venture with Nebius for a gigawatt-scale AI facility. In Q1 alone, it added $107 billion in new infrastructure commitments.

A Pattern of Cuts Since 2022

Today’s round is the latest in a series that has eliminated roughly 25,000 jobs since 2022:

• Nov. 2022: 11,000 cuts — framed as correcting pandemic over-hiring
• Early 2023: 10,000 cuts — Zuckerberg’s “Year of Efficiency”
• Jan. 2025: 3,600 cuts — described as performance-based
• Jan. 2026: 1,000–1,500 Reality Labs cuts; VR studios shuttered
• Mar. 2026: 700 more across five divisions
• May 2026: 8,000 companywide — the biggest round yet

Who’s Out, Who’s In

Employees cut include those on Meta’s integrity, cybersecurity, and content design teams. Simultaneously, 7,000 workers are being reassigned to new AI units — Applied AI Engineering, Agent Transformation Accelerator XFN, and Central Analytics. Meta also canceled plans to fill 6,000 open roles.

U.S. severance: 16 weeks base pay + 2 weeks per year of service.

Morale in Freefall

Inside Meta, the atmosphere is tense. Median total compensation fell from $417,400 in 2024 to $388,200 in 2025, and stock-based raises have been cut two years in a row. Meanwhile, AI researchers at Meta’s new Superintelligence Labs are reportedly receiving packages of up to $100 million.

A surveillance program called the Model Capability Initiative — which collected employee behavioral data to train AI models — drew a 1,500-person internal petition. One employee told Wired that workers feel they are “being used to train the AI models that will replace them.”

Part of a Bigger Tech Shakeout

Meta is not alone. Microsoft announced employee buyouts this week for the first time in 51 years. Combined, the two companies account for over 20,000 announced cuts in a single week. In 2026, more than 92,000 tech workers have been laid off so far, per Layoffs.fyi.

More Meta cuts may be coming — sources point to a potential additional round in August, with another later in the year.

Bottom Line

Bank of America projects $7–8 billion in annualized savings from the restructuring. Zuckerberg is effectively dismantling the social-media-era version of Meta to build an AI-native one. Whether the bet pays off is an open question. What’s certain is that 8,000 people learned their answer by email this morning.