Meta to cut up to 20% of workforce, plans $600bn AI data centre spending by 2028

Meta Platforms is considering sweeping layoffs that could affect up to 20% of its workforce as the company ramps up spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure. This is according to a Reuters report citing three sources familiar with the matter.

The potential job cuts are part of efforts to offset the massive cost of AI investments, including a plan to spend $600 billion on data centres by 2028. Meta has not set a date for the layoffs, and the magnitude has not been finalised.

Top executives have recently signalled the plans to other senior leaders at Meta and told them to begin planning how to pare back, two sources said. The sources spoke anonymously because they were not authorised to disclose the cuts.

“This is speculative reporting about theoretical approaches,” Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said in response to questions about the plan.

If Meta settles on the 20% figure, the layoffs will be the company’s most significant since a restructuring in late 2022 and early 2023 that it dubbed the “year of efficiency.” The company employed nearly 79,000 people as of December 31, 2025, according to its latest filing. A 20% cut would affect approximately 15,800 employees.

The AI spree driving the cuts

Over the last year, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has pushed Meta to compete more forcefully in generative AI. The company has offered huge pay packages, some worth hundreds of millions of dollars over four years, to court top AI researchers to a new superintelligence team.

Beyond the $600 billion data centre investment, Meta recently acquired Moltbook, a social networking platform built for AI agents. The company is also spending at least $2 billion to buy Chinese AI startup Manus, as previously reported.

Zuckerberg has alluded to efficiency gains from the investments, saying in January he was starting to see “projects that used to require big teams now be accomplished by a single very talented person.”

Similar read: Amazon to lay off another 14,000 employees in Q2 amid aggressive AI transition

The company laid off 11,000 staffers in November 2022, or around 13% of its workforce at the time. Around four months later, it announced it was cutting another 10,000 jobs.

Part of a broader tech layoff wave

Meta’s plans reflect a broader pattern amongst major US companies, particularly in tech, this year. Executives have pointed to recent improvements in AI systems as one reason for the changes.

In January, Amazon confirmed it would cut some 16,000 jobs, amounting to nearly 10% of its workforce. Last month, the fintech company Block chopped nearly half of its staff, with CEO Jack Dorsey explicitly pointing to AI tools and their growing capability to help companies do more with smaller teams.

Meta’s planned AI investments follow a series of setbacks with its Llama 4 models last year, including criticism that it provided misleading results on the benchmarks it used for early versions. It abandoned the release of the largest version of that model, called Behemoth, which had been due out in the summer.

The superintelligence team aimed to restore the company’s standing this year with their new Avocado model, but its performance has fallen short of expectations.

Whether Meta will proceed with the full 20% cut or settle on a smaller figure remains unclear as the company balances its AI ambitions against the financial and human cost of achieving them.

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