Meta cuts hundreds of employees and continues to ramp up AI investments

ME News update, April 3 (UTC+8), Meta is laying off several hundred employees in Silicon Valley, while the tech giant is also making major investments in artificial intelligence and is considering cutting more than 20% of its total workforce. According to the latest state government filing documents, the Facebook parent company will lay off nearly 200 employees in the San Francisco Bay Area. The layoffs will affect 124 employees in Burlingame, California, and 74 employees in nearby Sunnyvale. The documents show that the layoffs will take effect in late May, and all affected positions will be permanently eliminated.

Experts say this move indicates that Meta is undertaking a major strategic transformation------shifting from an operations model driven heavily by large human teams to machine-driven systems. Meta’s recent AI-related plans include considering investing $10 billion in El Paso, Texas, to build a data center. Meta is also considering even more significant layoffs. Senior employees have been told to prepare for layoffs that could affect more than 20% of the company’s employees------about 15,000 employees. Regarding this plan, a Meta spokesperson said: “This is speculative reporting about a theoretical scenario.” If the layoffs go through, it would be Meta’s largest round of layoffs since Zuckerberg pushed the company’s “efficiency years” in 2022 and 2023, when more than 20,000 employees were laid off.

During a Meta earnings call, Zuckerberg said that with the adoption of AI tools, Meta has started “seeing projects that used to require large teams being done now by a very talented individual.” (Source: ChainCatcher)