Oracle initiates large-scale layoffs, with the number of affected employees reaching over a thousand

Is AI · Are Oracle layoffs related to the heavy investment in the AI project Stargate?

On March 31, local time, Oracle launched a new round of large-scale layoffs. Behind the layoffs is the continued concern from the capital markets about Oracle’s aggressive expansion path in recent years.

Against the backdrop of the company stepping up its investment in AI infrastructure, the move quickly drew a high level of attention from both the market and the industry.

Several employees posted on LinkedIn saying that the layoffs have affected multiple business lines and multiple regions, including the United States and India. Some employees said they received emails from “Oracle management” in the early morning, which thanked them for their past contributions while also clearly informing them that “today is your last day with the company.” One email said: “After careful assessment of Oracle’s current business needs, we have decided to eliminate your position.”

Although Oracle refused to comment externally, multiple employees revealed that internal figures show the current scale of layoffs has already reached several thousand people.

Earlier, investment bank TD Cowen had predicted that as Oracle raises funds for its AI infrastructure project, the number of layoffs could be as high as 30,000, accompanied by the sale of some assets.

Behind the layoffs is the capital market’s ongoing concern about Oracle’s aggressive expansion strategy in recent years. Over the past 6 months, due to investors’ doubts about the feasibility of its data center financing plans, the company’s stock price has fallen nearly 50% in total.

Despite Oracle raising its sales forecast in its latest financial report and emphasizing that demand for AI remains strong—so strong that it is “outstripping supply”—what the market is more sensitive to is the rapid expansion on the company’s spending side. In regulatory filings submitted recently, the company disclosed that this fiscal year it will add an additional $500 million in restructuring costs, higher than previously expected. This has been widely interpreted as a signal that layoffs and structural adjustments are being accelerated.

However, on the day the layoff news was released, Oracle’s stock price still rose by about 6%, showing that some investors viewed it as a positive move to improve the cost structure.

Deeper down, the reason lies in Oracle’s AI infrastructure project “Stargate.” This project, jointly developed by Oracle and OpenAI, plans to build multiple large data centers over the next few years, with total investment reaching several tens of billions of dollars. Currently, the flagship site in Abilene, Texas, has been partially put into operation.

From the market’s perspective, this project could become either a key engine to bring Oracle back onto a growth track, or it could further burden its finances due to the enormous investment and a longer return cycle. In particular, with the need to shoulder large debt financing, and the deep binding to OpenAI, which has not yet achieved stable profitability, some investors regard this collaboration as a high-risk bet.

Meanwhile, OpenAI has recently secured about $110 billion in funding commitments and plans to push forward with an initial public offering (IPO) later this year. Competition in the AI space is intensifying, as it is also vying for high-value enterprise customers with rivals such as Anthropic. In this industry landscape, the progress of the “Stargate” project is increasingly being seen as an important window for observing whether investment in AI infrastructure is overheating.

It is worth noting that Oracle’s layoffs are not an isolated event. In recent months, the rapid development of AI technology has been driving a new wave of workforce reshuffling across the tech industry. Over the past 6 months, Amazon cut about 30,000 employees; in February this year, U.S. fintech company Block announced layoffs affecting nearly half its employees, and its CEO Jack Dorsey explicitly said that this decision is directly related to improvements in automation enabled by AI.

Reporter Yan Lingkang

Text Editor Wang Zhex i