Meta to Cut 200 Silicon Valley Jobs in Upcoming Layoffs

Meta Layoffs: Another Round of Job Cuts Amid AI Push

Meta Platforms, led by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is gearing up for yet another round of layoffs, this time eliminating over 200 roles across its California's Silicon Valley office. The latest wave of Meta layoffs comes at a time when Zuckerberg has announced plans to push the implementation of AI across all layers of the company, with a focus on more generative AI projects.

According to regulatory filings with California's Employment Development Department, the Meta layoffs will happen in its Silicon Valley offices. As many as 24 positions will be cut at Meta's Burlingame office, while around 74 employees at its Sunnyvale location will receive pink slips. The layoffs are linked to an announcement from last month that affected Meta's sales and recruiting teams and its Reality Labs hardware division.

The job cuts at Burlingame are scheduled for May 22, while the Sunnyvale layoffs will come seven days later on May 29. The Meta layoffs are permanent, according to the filings. Some employees affected by this wave of layoffs will be offered jobs within Meta.

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Meta has been pushing the use of AI across the company and has been streamlining jobs to invest in the technology. The company projected it will spend up to $135 billion on capital expenditures in 2026, including those related to AI. This investment is part of Meta's sustained effort to compete more forcefully in generative AI.

Meta's AI Push and Layoffs Timeline

Meta has been laying off employees at an alarming rate in recent years. In 2022, the company laid off 11,000 employees, or around 13% of its workforce at the time. Around four months later, it announced it was cutting another 10,000 jobs. The company employed nearly 79,000 people as of December 31, according to its latest filing.

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Over the last year, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been pushing Meta to compete more forcefully in generative AI. The company has offered huge pay packages, some worth hundreds of millions of dollars over four years, to court top AI researchers to a new superintelligence team.