Rogue Meta AI exposes data

Meta is reportedly moving ahead with a new round of layoffs as part of its broader 2026 workforce reduction plans, starting May 20. The first phase is expected to impact around 10% (~ 8,000 employees) of its global workforce, reports Reuters. This is likely to be followed by additional job cuts later in 2026, making it a multi-phase restructuring effort. Despite strong financial performance, the company is proceeding with these layoffs to streamline operations.

The scale of the planned cuts makes this one of the company’s most significant workforce actions since its earlier restructuring cycle. The social media giant had an estimated 79,000 employees at the end of 2025, meaning even the initial round will affect a sizable portion of its workforce. Internally, discussions have reportedly explored deeper reductions, with some scenarios considering cuts of up to 20%, although those figures are not finalized.

It is worth noting that these layoffs are not due to weak business performance. The social media behemoth generated over $200 billion in revenue and around $60 billion in profit in its most recent fiscal year, making it one of the strongest companies in the tech sector. Instead, the job cuts are part of a strategic shift led by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who is focused on transforming the company into an AI-first organization.

Meta has been aggressively expanding its AI efforts, investing heavily in hardware, cloud computing, and talent to compete with companies like OpenAI and Google. Recently, the Zuckerberg-led firm signed a $60 billion AI chip deal with AMD. It has also been active in acquisitions, as reports suggest the firm recently bought AI agent platform Moltbook to bring its team into its AI projects. In 2025, the company acquired Manus for around $2-3 billion and invested $14 billion in Scale AI, bringing its founder, Alexandr Wang, to lead Meta’s Superintelligence Labs. The company has also indicated it could spend up to $135 billion on AI infrastructure in 2026 alone.

Along with these investments, Meta is also restructuring its internal organization. Engineering resources are being consolidated into more centralized AI-focused teams, including a growing Applied AI division, while other parts of the business – like Reality Labs and product-focused units – are also being realigned.

However, such large-scale job cuts are not new for Meta. The company laid off around 11,000 employees in 2022, which was about 13% of its workforce. In 2023, it cut another 10,000 jobs and also removed 5,000 unfilled roles as part of Mark Zuckerberg’s ‘year of efficiency’.

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