Meta lays off hundreds as tech giant pushes forward with AI investment

Meta is slashing hundreds of employees in Silicon Valley as the tech giant heavily invests in artificial intelligence and weighs axing over 20% of its workforce.

The Facebook parent company is cutting nearly 200 workers in the San Francisco Bay Area, according to new state filings.

The reductions will hit 124 employees in Burlingame, Calif. and another 74 in nearby Sunnyvale, with the cuts taking effect in late May and all affected positions permanently eliminated, filings cited by the San Francisco Chronicle show.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is said to be weighing layoffs that could 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 critical roles and that its headcount as of Dec. 31, 2025 was 78,865 — a 6% increase year-over-year.

The move comes as Meta signals a massive strategic shift — away from labor-heavy operations and toward machine-driven systems, according to experts. Recent AI efforts include a planned $10 billion spend on Meta’s data center in El Paso, Texas.

Meanwhile, recent weeks have seen the company lay off about 700 employees working in operations, recruiting, sales and Meta’s “Reality Labs” unit, the Chronicle noted.

Meta is cutting nearly 200 jobs in the Bay Area as part of its latest round of layoffs. AP

The company is also weighing far deeper cuts.

Senior employees have reportedly been told to prepare for layoffs that could affect more than 20% of the company’s workforce — about 15,000 workers.

“This is a speculative report about theoretical approaches,” a Meta spokesperson said when asked about the plan.

The potential reductions would mark the biggest 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 tools.

“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, author of “Generation AI,” told The Post.

Job cuts in Burlingame and Sunnyvale are set to take effect in late May, according to state filings. AP

Meta’s Bay Area layoffs are just the latest in a steady drumbeat of job cuts across the tech sector as companies bet big on artificial intelligence.

Industrywide, the numbers are staggering. More than 152,000 tech workers were laid off in 2024, followed by at least 118,000 more in 2025, according to compiled layoff trackers.

So far this year, estimates for layoffs range from about 45,000 to more than 52,000, a discrepancy that reflects how widespread and fast-moving the reductions have become.

At the same time, companies are pouring unprecedented sums into AI — an investment surge that is reshaping hiring decisions.

Major firms including Microsoft and Amazon have announced tens of thousands of layoffs over the past two years, often tied to reorganizations and shifting priorities toward AI and cloud computing.

Even companies that continue hiring are doing so selectively — cutting some roles while aggressively recruiting for AI-related positions.

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Salesforce, for example, has cut more than 1,000 jobs while simultaneously hiring workers to support new AI products, underscoring the uneven impact 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 playing out across departments once considered core to tech companies.

Zuckerberg is pouring up to $135 billion into AI even as Meta cuts jobs across its workforce. Bloomberg via Getty Images

Recruiting, customer support, basic sales operations and even parts of research and development are increasingly being handled by AI systems, reducing the need for large teams.

“AI is becoming the new fixed cost, and humans are becoming the variable,” Britton said.

Not everyone is convinced 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.”