Zuckerberg: Slowed sales attributed to war, layoffs due to AI costs

Gold Financial reports that on May 1st, according to The Wall Street Journal, Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg provided new details about the company’s aggressive AI plans during a company-wide meeting on Thursday and responded to market negative reactions to its first-quarter earnings. Zuckerberg attributed the 8% decline in Meta’s stock price to investors’ concerns over upward revisions to its expected capital expenditures and the company’s forecast of slower growth in the second quarter. Zuckerberg said that after the U.S. went to war with Iran at the end of February, Meta’s advertising business experienced a “change in trajectory.” He said, “If oil prices rise, consumers will spend more on oil and gasoline, and their spending on non-essential items that are less necessary will decrease, and advertising is usually targeted at these kinds of products.” Zuckerberg attributed the company’s layoffs planned for next month to the need to invest more in data centers and other artificial intelligence infrastructure. He said, “The company basically has two cost centers. One is computing and infrastructure, and the other is personnel. If we invest more in one area to serve our communities, it means we have less capital to allocate to another area. So this means we really need to moderately reduce the size of the company.”