Meta faces lawsuit over AI-driven layoff selections

On Monday, twenty-six Meta employees filed a lawsuit in Oakland, California alleging that the tech company used artificial intelligence to select workers for mass layoffs in violation of employment law. The lawsuit claims Meta employed AI systems to "score, rank, and select employees" for termination, bypassing the "considered judgement of managers who knew the work" as required by law. The plaintiffs assert that this approach disproportionately targeted those on medical or family leave and those seeking reasonable accommodations for disability.

According to the 71-page complaint, the AI systems analyzed "performance ratings, calibration scores, productivity and output metrics" to determine which workers to lay off. The lawsuit emphasizes that these metrics cannot be accumulated by employees on protected medical or family leave, and may be reduced for workers with disabilities. The plaintiffs contend that Meta "did not pause the system for the individualized, leave- and accommodation-neutral review that the law requires." Notably, all 26 employees who filed the lawsuit had either taken or requested protected leave, or had requested or received a reasonable accommodation for disability.

Meta is reducing its workforce as part of a broader strategic pivot toward artificial intelligence infrastructure. The company announced it would lay off 8,000 employees—some 10 percent of its total workforce—in Spring while reallocating resources to AI development. This year, Meta is planning to spend up to $145 billion（約23兆円） on AI investments, nearly twice the prior year's figure, reflecting the magnitude of its infrastructure expansion plans.

The company has denied the allegations. A Meta spokesperson told CNBC in an email that the "claims lack merit and are not based on facts" and stated that "workforce management and organizational decisions were and are made by people, not AI." Meta did not immediately respond to requests for additional comment.

Meta's Spring layoffs were framed by the company as a resource redirection toward an ambitious artificial intelligence agenda. The company has committed up to $145 billion（約23兆円） to AI investments this year—nearly twice the prior year's spending—signaling the scale of its infrastructure ambitions. However, the timing of the 8,000-person workforce reduction (10 percent of Meta's staff) alongside this expansion has drawn legal scrutiny from affected employees.

The lawsuit centers on a procedural claim: that automated systems were used to make or heavily influence layoff decisions in ways that bypassed the individualized human judgment normally required by employment law, particularly when workers are on protected leave or have disability accommodations. The plaintiffs argue that the AI systems' reliance on productivity and performance metrics inherently disadvantaged those on medical or family leave, since such metrics cannot be accumulated during leave periods. Meta's defense—that people, not AI, made the decisions—does not directly address whether the company used AI-generated scores or recommendations as inputs to those human decisions, a distinction that may be central to the legal claims.