Meta is reassigning 7,000 employees to AI-focused teams while laying off 8,000 others this week, creating a 20% workforce churn that reveals the scale of the company's transformation under Mark Zuckerberg. The layoffs, set for Wednesday, will hit roughly 10% of Meta's 77,986-person workforce. Layoff emails go out at 4 a.m local time, and employees in North America were told to work from home that day.
US workers getting cut will receive 16 weeks of severance plus two additional weeks for every year of service. But the cuts tell only half the story. Chief People Officer Janelle Gale told employees in a memo seen by Reuters that 7,000 workers are being moved to four new AI-native organizations with fewer managers per employee. The transfers are already underway in some cases, with others notified Wednesday.
CTO Andrew Bosworth previously announced the two main destinations: Applied AI Engineering (AAI) and Agent Transformation Accelerator (ATA) XFN, both part of Meta's "AI for Work" initiative. These teams build AI agents designed to autonomously handle tasks currently done by humans. A third unit, Central Analytics, will measure productivity for agent development.
"Many of them incorporated AI native design principles into their new org structures," Gale wrote. "We're now at the stage where many orgs can operate with a flatter structure with smaller teams of pods/cohorts that can move faster and with more ownership."
Employees internally call the reassignments "being drafted," according to Reuters. More than 1,000 workers have signed a petition opposing mouse-tracking software Meta installed to train AI models on human-computer interaction.
Others posted elephant emoji on executive Workplace posts for weeks, demanding leadership address the layoffs that Reuters reported more than a month ago.
Meta has filed only two WARN notices covering fewer than 200 workers in California, leaving most of the 8,000 affected employees in the dark about their specific fate. James Brudney, who helped draft the WARN Act as chief counsel of the Senate Subcommittee on Labor, told Newsweek that affected employees are likely entitled to 60 days of pay and benefits if Meta failed to provide proper notice.
"Meta may be planning to eat the loss," Brudney said. "It's a lot of money." The company has closed 6,000 open roles on top of the cuts and transfers. Additional layoffs are expected later this year, with deeper cuts still on the table.
Meta raised its 2026 capital expenditure guidance to between $125 billion and $145 billion, driven by AI infrastructure costs. CFO Susan Li told employees the head count reductions would help the company "move more quickly" while covering expanding infrastructure commitments.
Zuckerberg told employees he could not predict workforce levels over the next several years. "I wish that I can tell you that I have a crystal ball plan for the next, like, three years of how all this stuff is going to play out," he said, according to Reuters.
"I don't. I don't think anyone does."
