Meta is reportedly planning layoffs that could eliminate up to 20 percent of its workforce, a move that would affect roughly 15,000 employees and rank among the largest job cuts in the company’s history. The reductions are designed to offset a massive surge in capital spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure, which the company expects to reach as high as $135 billion this year.
Reuters first reported the plans, citing sources familiar with the matter. Meta executives have reportedly instructed senior leaders to begin planning for the cuts, though the exact scale and timeline have not been finalized. A Meta spokesperson characterized the reporting as “speculative reporting about theoretical approaches.”
Meta Plans to Double AI Spending in 2026
The potential layoffs come as Meta prepares to nearly double its capital expenditure budget. The company spent $72.2 billion on infrastructure in 2025 and has projected $115 billion to $135 billion for this year, driven almost entirely by investments in AI data centers, custom chips, and computing capacity. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has pushed the company to compete more aggressively in the AI race, positioning Meta against rivals like OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft.
Unlike its Big Tech peers, Meta lacks a cloud computing business to generate direct revenue from its infrastructure investments. Amazon, Google, and Microsoft all monetize their AI spending through cloud services sold to enterprise customers. Meta’s AI infrastructure, by contrast, is used primarily for internal products across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and its growing suite of AI tools.
A Growing Pattern Across the Tech Industry
Meta’s reported plans follow a string of similar moves across the technology sector. Block CEO Jack Dorsey slashed 40 percent of his company’s headcount in February, citing AI-driven efficiencies. Atlassian cut 10 percent of its workforce, roughly 1,600 employees, on March 11 to “self-fund” investments in AI and enterprise sales. ServiceNow’s CEO recently warned that AI agents could push college graduate unemployment past 30 percent as companies replace entry-level roles with automated systems.
The pattern suggests a broader structural shift in which technology companies are cutting human workers to finance the very AI systems that may eventually replace even more positions. For founders and small business operators watching from the outside, the message is clear: the largest employers in tech are betting that fewer people and more machines will define their next decade of growth.
Strong Revenue Has Not Shielded the Workforce
What makes Meta’s situation unusual is the strength of its underlying business. The company posted $201 billion in revenue for 2025, a 22 percent increase year over year, with fourth-quarter revenue alone reaching nearly $60 billion. Despite that financial performance, Meta’s leadership appears to view headcount reduction as essential to maintaining margins while scaling AI operations.
The company had already begun trimming earlier this year, laying off approximately 1,000 employees from its Reality Labs division, the unit responsible for virtual reality hardware and metaverse development. Reality Labs has been a persistent money pit, accumulating billions in losses without reaching profitability.
What This Means for the Broader Economy
If the full 20 percent reduction moves forward, it would put more than 15,000 highly skilled workers onto the job market at a time when tech companies are diverging sharply on how much to spend on AI. While some displaced employees may land at competitors or startups, the sheer volume of potential layoffs could put downward pressure on tech salaries and reshape hiring dynamics across the industry.
Wall Street has responded favorably to the reports. Meta’s stock climbed nearly 3 percent on March 16 after the layoff plans surfaced, signaling that investors view the cost-cutting as a net positive for the company’s long-term financial profile. If executed, this would be Meta’s largest single round of job cuts since the “year of efficiency” in late 2022 and early 2023, when the company eliminated roughly 21,000 positions across two rounds of layoffs.
