Meta eliminates 8,000 positions and terminates 6,000 job openings as $135 billion in AI investment transforms the company internally.

      **Summary:** Meta is set to reduce its workforce by around 8,000 employees (approximately 10% of its total employees) starting May 20, while also cancelling 6,000 job openings. Further reductions are expected in the second half of 2026, but specifics remain unclear. The layoffs, conveyed through an internal memo from HR head Janelle Gale, are framed as structural changes to reorganize teams into AI-centric "pods," with the company investing $115-135 billion in AI infrastructure this year. These layoffs coincide with significant executive stock options amounting to nearly $921 million each, as well as a workplace surveillance initiative monitoring employee keystrokes for AI training.

      On Wednesday, Meta informed employees of the impending cuts to about 8,000 jobs, representing roughly 10% of its global workforce. The firm will also terminate 6,000 open positions, effectively increasing the total job reductions to 14,000. More layoffs are anticipated later in the year, although their timing and extent have not yet been established. If these follow-up cuts align with the initial ones, Meta’s workforce will have shrunk by about 20% since before 2026. The memo from Janelle Gale, Meta’s HR leader, noted the early announcement due to leaks, clarifying that these layoffs are part of the company's ongoing efforts to increase efficiency and offset other investments. Gale acknowledged that this decision would involve letting go of valued employees who have made significant contributions to Meta.

      The investments Gale referenced are expected to range from $115 billion to $135 billion for this year alone, marking a 73% rise from the $72.2 billion spent in 2025, almost entirely aimed at AI infrastructure. Meta is working on Prometheus, a one-gigawatt AI supercluster in Ohio that will launch this year, as well as Hyperion, a $10 billion, 2,250-acre facility in Louisiana capable of five gigawatts. In June 2025, the company appointed Alexandr Wang, the former CEO of Scale AI, as its first chief AI officer as part of a deal that entailed a $14.3 billion investment in Scale AI. The company is aggressively recruiting top AI talent with offers reaching up to $1.5 billion for individual engineers. The people being recruited are distinct from those being laid off, which is a key element of the transition.

      The May layoffs mark the third round of job cuts in 2026 at Meta. Previously in January, over 1,000 jobs were eliminated in the Reality Labs sector, closing several VR game studios and cutting around 10% of that division. In March, 700 more employees across various divisions, including Reality Labs, Facebook social, recruiting, sales, and global operations were let go. The cuts in May are company-wide and structural instead of performance-related, as made clear in Gale’s memo. Meta is redesigning teams into AI-oriented "pods" and reallocating engineers into the Applied AI organization, with new job titles such as “AI builder,” “AI pod lead,” and “AI org lead.” The aim, as described in internal communications, is to significantly enhance engineering productivity and product quality through a fundamental overhaul of operations.

      Since 2022, total job losses have surpassed 33,000. Meta laid off 11,000 employees in November 2022, 10,000 in March 2023, 3,600 in January 2025 (labeled as performance-driven, although some had received positive evaluations), and about 9,700 in the three waves of layoffs in 2026. The company ended 2025 with 78,865 employees, a 6% increase from the previous year, having actively rehired throughout 2024 and 2025 following what they termed the “year of efficiency.” Currently, layoffs are deeper than previous hiring. Employees affected by the May cuts will receive 16 weeks of base pay plus an additional two weeks for each year of service, along with 18 months of health coverage.

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      **The compensation disparity**

      Just days before the March layoffs, Meta filed SEC disclosures introducing a new stock option program linked to achieving a $9 trillion market capitalization by 2031, roughly six times its current worth. This program could yield up to $921 million each for CTO Andrew Bosworth, CPO Chris Cox, and COO Javier Olivan, and $787 million for CFO Susan Li, while Mark Zuckerberg is not part of this plan. Modeled after Tesla CEO Elon Musk's compensation framework, this is Meta's first such program since becoming publicly traded in 2012.

      The optics surrounding these changes are troubling. Stock-based compensation accounted for approximately 96% of Meta’s $