Meta lays off hundreds after CEO Mark Zuckerberg said AI can replace teams | Latest Tech News
Meta is slashing hundreds of staff in Silicon Valley as the tech giant closely invests in artificial intelligence and weighs axing over 20% of its workforce.
The Facebook dad or mum company is cutting practically 200 staff in the San Francisco Bay Area, according to new state filings.
The reductions will hit 124 staff in Burlingame, Calif. and another 74 in close by Sunnyvale, with the cuts taking impact in late May and all affected positions completely eradicated, filings cited by the San Francisco Chronicle show.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is said to be weighing layoffs that may hit more than 20% of the company’s workforce as it ramps up spending on artificial intelligence. Nathan Posner/Shutterstock
“Teams across Meta regularly restructure or implement changes to ensure they’re in the best position to achieve their goals,” a Meta spokesperson told The Post.
“Where possible, we are finding other opportunities for employees whose positions may be impacted.”
The company added that it was still hiring for essential roles and that its headcount as of Dec. 31, 2025 was 78,865 — a 6% increase year-over-year.
The transfer comes as Meta alerts a huge strategic shift — away from labor-heavy operations and toward machine-driven systems, according to consultants. Recent AI efforts embrace a deliberate $10 billion spend on Meta’s data middle in El Paso, Texas.
Meanwhile, latest weeks have seen the company lay off about 700 staff working in operations, recruiting, gross sales and Meta’s “Reality Labs” unit, the Chronicle famous.
Meta is cutting practically 200 jobs in the Bay Area as half of its latest spherical of layoffs. AP
The company is also weighing far deeper cuts.
Senior staff have reportedly been told to put together for layoffs that may have an effect on more than 20% of the company’s workforce — about 15,000 staff.
“This is a speculative report about theoretical approaches,” a Meta spokesperson said when requested about the plan.
The potential reductions would mark the most important layoffs at Meta since Zuckerberg oversaw more than 20,000 job cuts during the company’s “year of efficiency” push in 2022 and 2023.
On a Meta earnings call, Zuckerberg said Meta is “starting to see projects that used to require big teams now be accomplished by a single, very talented person,” thanks to AI instruments.
“When a company is cutting hundreds of people and at the same time gearing up to spend $135 billion on AI, it’s sending a very clear message: the center of gravity is shifting from human-powered operations to machine-augmented operations,” Matt Britton, creator of “Generation AI,” told The Post.
Job cuts in Burlingame and Sunnyvale are set to take impact in late May, according to state filings. AP
Meta’s Bay Area layoffs are just the latest in a regular drumbeat of job cuts across the tech sector as corporations wager big on artificial intelligence.
Industrywide, the numbers are staggering. More than 152,000 tech staff had been laid off in 2024, adopted by at least 118,000 more in 2025, according to compiled layoff trackers.
So far this 12 months, estimates for layoffs vary from about 45,000 to more than 52,000, a discrepancy that displays how widespread and fast-moving the reductions have turn out to be.
At the same time, corporations are pouring unprecedented sums into AI — an investment surge that is reshaping hiring selections.
Major companies including Microsoft and Amazon have announced tens of hundreds of layoffs over the past two years, often tied to reorganizations and shifting priorities toward AI and cloud computing.
Even corporations that continue hiring are doing so selectively — cutting some roles while aggressively recruiting for AI-related positions.
Salesforce, for instance, has cut more than 1,000 jobs while concurrently hiring staff to help new AI merchandise, underscoring the uneven influence of the shift.
“Roles built on repeatable, rules-based work are the first to get squeezed,” Britton said.
“Meta isn’t saying ‘we don’t need people.’ It’s saying ‘we don’t need as many people doing what people used to do.’”
The shift is already taking part in out across departments once thought-about core to tech corporations.
Zuckerberg is pouring up to $135 billion into AI even as Meta cuts jobs across its workforce. Bloomberg via Getty Images
Recruiting, buyer help, basic gross sales operations and even components of research and development are more and more being dealt with by AI systems, lowering the need for large teams.
“AI is becoming the new fixed cost, and humans are becoming the variable,” Britton said.
Not everyone seems to be satisfied the cuts will stick.
“This is not a clean replacement of humans,” Ravi Sawhney, CEO of RKS Design, told The Post.
“It is a restructuring around perceived efficiency, without fully understanding the human systems that make that efficiency real.”
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