Meta’s layoffs starting this week underscore Zuckerberg’s AI reality

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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wears the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses, as he delivers a speech presenting the new line of smart glasses, during the Meta Connect event at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California, U.S., Sept. 17, 2025.

Carlos Barria | Reuters

When Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told employees about his plan in late 2022 to lay off 11,000 employees, in cuts that would later expand to 21,000, he was contrite in admitting that he overhired during the Covid pandemic.

“I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that,” Zuckerberg said in a message to staffers in November of that year as the company’s stock was in freefall. In early 2023, Zuckerberg said the cuts were necessary as part of Meta’s “year of efficiency.”

More than three years later, with the latest round of mass layoffs set to begin this week, the tone at the top has changed dramatically. Starting Wednesday, Meta is reducing its workforce by about 10%, or about 8,000 jobs. The company also scrapped plans to fill 6,000 open roles, according to a memo about the layoffs in April.

The current downsizing follows cuts of about 1,000 staffers in January in the company’s Reality Labs unit, and reductions in March impacting hundreds more workers, along with the decision to shift away from third-party vendors and contractors tasked with content-moderation tasks.

Meanwhile, Meta is ramping up its investments in artificial intelligence, lifting its 2026 guidance for capital expenditures last month by as much as $10 billion, reaching as high as $145 billion.

In announcing the coming job cuts, a week before disclosing the capex increase, Meta told employees that the reductions are “all part of our continued effort to run the company more efficiently and to allow us to offset the other investments we’re making.”

There was no apology from Zuckerberg. Meta declined to comment for this story.

Internally, there’s an emerging sense of dread across wide swaths of the company, according to current and former Meta…

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