The layoffs were announced in an internal memo from Meta’s head of HR, Janelle Gale, who said the reductions were aimed at improving efficiency and would allow the company to “offset the other investments we’re making”.
The cuts will begin on May 20, and Meta has also confirmed it will not proceed with hiring for 6,000 open roles it had intended to fill.
The May round touches every major business unit, with teams across Reality Labs, Facebook’s social division, recruiting, sales, and global operations all affected. It is not, however, an isolated event.
Earlier this year Meta cut around 1,500 Reality Labs staff and shuttered several VR game studios, followed by a further 700 redundancies across five divisions in March. Since 2022, Zuckerberg has eliminated roughly 25,000 positions in total.
Meta is spending between $115 billion and $135 billion on capital expenditure in 2026, the bulk of it on AI infrastructure. The company’s internal reorganisation reflects that shift, with traditional engineering roles being recast as “AI builder,” “AI pod lead,” and “AI org lead” positions under a newly formed Applied AI Engineering division.
The May round is described as the first wave of what could be an ongoing series of cuts throughout the remainder of 2026, though executives may adjust plans as AI development progresses.
Meta is not alone. Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft are collectively expected to spend around $650 billion on capital expenditure this year, a figure that is increasingly coming at the expense of headcount across the industry.
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