Meta to cut 10% of workforce as AI spending surges
Meta has announced plans to cut 10% of its workforce, or roughly 8,000 employees, as it ramps up spending on AI.According to an internal memo published by Bloomberg, the firm said it was “necessary to run the company more efficiently and to allow us to offset the other investments we’re making”.Usually, memos of this magnitude are written by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, but in this case it was attributed to chief people officer Janelle Gale. “This is not an easy trade-off and it will mean letting go of people who have made meaningful contributions to Meta during their time here,” she added.Employees will not know who will get the cut until 20 May, when Meta will contact those who have been affected.After years trying to hitch its future fortunes on the metaverse – a primarily virtual reality-based experience designed as a social hub for users – the firm announced in March that the service would be shut down entirely and the platform would only be accessible on smartphones. It subsequently reversed this announcement, and plans to keep the app running for the small pool of users who are still regularly logging in.Meta spent an estimated $70bn to $80bn on its metaverse division, which was responsible for developing Horizon Worlds, as well as the associated hardware needed to access it. It was released in December 2021 following broad proclamations from Zuckerberg that it would be the “next frontier” in human connection and could even reach around one billion people by the end of the decade.But recent years have seen Meta making a decisive shift towards AI-driven products, with its chatbot being incorporated into WhatsApp and Facebook increasingly leaning on AI tools to automatically moderate the platform.The firm has committed to spending between $115bn and $135bn on AI infrastructure this year – a major increase on the $72.2bn it spent in 2025. That spending will be primarily used to build data centres, purchase semiconductors and GPU clusters, and develop the infrastructure needed to support its Llama models.Meta is planning to build 30 new data centres in total by 2028, with 26 located in the US. This includes the Prometheus facility in Ohio, which is a 1-gigawatt AI data centre powered by dedicated nuclear energy deals that is due for completion within a vague 2026-27 timeframe. By 2028 Meta expects to complete Hyperion in Louisiana, a 5-gigawatt facility that will be the world’s largest AI data centre once complete.
