Meta cuts 10% of workforce, Microsoft offers buyouts to 7% — tech giants betting layoffs will fund AI spending

Meta is eliminating 10% of its roughly 67,000 employees (about 6,700 people), while Microsoft is offering voluntary retirement packages to approximately 7% of its workforce. Both companies cite the need to redirect resources toward artificial intelligence development and infrastructure.

These layoffs happen as Meta and Microsoft are simultaneously increasing capital spending on AI data centers and computing power — the chips and servers required to train and run AI models. The companies are betting that smaller, more focused teams can deliver AI products faster than larger organizations.

For employees: job security in tech tightens outside AI and cloud roles. For business customers: expect faster rollout of AI features in Microsoft 365 and Meta's advertising tools, but potentially higher prices as companies recoup AI infrastructure costs. For competitors: the layoffs signal that even dominant tech companies see current headcount as unsustainable alongside AI-scale spending.