Oracle cutting thousands of jobs while maintaining heavy AI infrastructure spending

Oracle has started telling employees it is cutting thousands of jobs. The company employed 162,000 people as of May 2025. TD Cowen analysts wrote in a January note that cutting 20,000 to 30,000 employees could lead to $8 billion to $10 billion in incremental free cash flow.

The layoffs occur as Oracle faces a 25% stock price decline this year while funding major data center buildouts for AI workloads. In January, Oracle announced plans to raise $50 billion in debt and equity. During earnings last month, executives said there were no more plans to raise debt in 2026.

Oracle's remaining performance obligations jumped 359% to $455 billion following an agreement with OpenAI worth over $300 billion. On an earnings call earlier this month, CEO Clay Magouyrk stated: 'Demand for AI infrastructure, both GPU and CPU, continues to exceed supply. This is directly visible in our $553 billion remaining performance obligations.'