Meta Cuts 7,800 Jobs and Moves 7,000 Employees to AI Projects – What It Means

On May 18, 2024 Meta circulated an internal memo that the company would lay off about 7,800 employees—approximately 10% of its global staff—effective May 20, and that it expects additional, larger‑scale reductions later in the year, possibly as early as August.

The memo also confirmed the cancellation of roughly 6,000 open‑position recruitments and outlined a major organizational redesign that will dramatically reduce management layers in favor of a flatter structure.

Chief People Officer Janelle Gale highlighted the introduction of “AI‑native design principles,” stating that future work will rely on smaller, autonomous teams to accelerate response times.

As part of the “full AI transformation,” Meta plans to transfer up to 7,000 employees to new projects tied to AI workflows, with some relocations already underway.

Employee sentiment has turned sharply negative. Multiple staff members described the office atmosphere before the layoffs as “like the end of the world,” and reported a surge in “benefit‑grabbing” behavior: spending the $2,000 annual flexible‑benefit allowance, using a $200 audio‑equipment subsidy to buy AirPods, and hoarding free snacks, drinks, and chargers.

Several offices are reported to be nearly empty, with employees updating resumes, backing up pay slips, or even meeting at bars to “disband” teams.

Many express frustration over forced transfers to AI teams and a steep drop in morale.

Meta has also rolled out an employee‑behavior monitoring tool that captures mouse and keyboard activity to train AI assistants for coding and other tasks; staff have launched a petition demanding the project be halted.

Data from an anonymous workplace platform shows overall employee satisfaction falling 25% and culture‑related scores dropping 39% since the second quarter of 2024.

Strategically, Meta is intensifying its AI investments: in April it signed a multi‑billion‑dollar agreement with Amazon to lease Graviton processors for AI workloads, and earlier in February it announced a multi‑year partnership with Nvidia that includes local deployment, cloud integration, and the company becoming the first to deploy Nvidia’s Grace CPU at scale.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg has emphasized that shifting to AI will free up capital for AI data centers and enable the company to “do the same work with fewer people.”