Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta is planning to cut 10% of its staff as it moves to center artificial intelligence initiatives and improve efficiency.
The cuts, which begin on May 20, will affect roughly 8,000 workers and will close 6,000 open roles, per reports. Meta’s chief people officer Janelle Gale shared the news with staffers in a Thursday memo.
“We’re doing this as part of our continued effort to run the company more efficiently and to allow us to offset the other investments we’re making,” Gale said. “This is not an easy trade-off and it will mean letting go of people who have made meaningful contributions to Meta during their time here.”
In a response to TheWrap, Meta confirmed the staff cuts.
The umbrella company which houses Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, had 78,865 people on staff at the end of 2025. The New York Times reports that Zuckerberg anticipates that AI will replace most people working in the technology industry.
This follows the latest round of cuts the company has made. Back in January, Meta cut 10% of staff working on metaverse-centered virtual reality projects within its Reality Labs unit, according to CNBC. That same month, Meta outlined plans to ramp up spending on AI to $135 billion in 2026, doubling the $72 billion the company spent in 2025.
In January 2025, Mark Zuckerberg reduced the workforce by 5% — or 3,620 employees — to “move out low-performers.”
“This is going to be an intense year, and I want to make sure we have the best people on our teams,” Zuckerberg said at the time.
