Meta to lay off 600 workers in AI shake-up
Meta will lay off roughly 600 employees within its artificial intelligence (AI) unit as the company seeks to reduce management layers and operate more efficiently, a spokesperson confirmed to CNBC on Wednesday.
The company announced the cuts in a memo from its Chief AI Officer, Alexandr Wang, who was hired in June as part of Meta’s 14.3 billion-dollar investment in Scale AI. Workers across Meta’s AI infrastructure units, Fundamental Artificial Intelligence Research unit, and other product-related roles will be affected.
Axios was the first to report the job cuts.
Meta has been aggressively restructuring its approach to AI in recent months as it works to keep pace with rivals such as OpenAI and Google, which are investing billions of dollars in infrastructure and recruitment.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg is said to have grown frustrated with Meta’s progress in AI, particularly after the release of its Llama 4 AI models in April received a lukewarm response from developers.
Following the company’s investment in Scale AI, Zuckerberg unveiled a new unit called Meta Superintelligence Labs, made up of top AI researchers and engineers. The group is led by Wang and former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman.
During Meta’s second-quarter earnings call in July, the company said it expects total expenses for 2025 to range between 114 billion and 118 billion dollars, raising the lower end of its previous outlook. That figure is expected to increase further, as Meta indicated that its AI initiatives will “result in a 2026 year-on-year expense growth rate that is above the 2025 expense growth.”
Meta is scheduled to report its third-quarter results next week.
On Tuesday, the company announced a 27 billion-dollar deal with Blue Owl Capital to fund and develop its massive Hyperion data centre in rural Louisiana. The facility is expected to be large enough to cover a “significant part of the footprint of Manhattan,” Zuckerberg said in a post in July.
