Mark Zuckerberg held a company town hall on April 30 to address Meta employees directly about the layoffs. It was the first time he had spoken to staff about the cuts since Reuters first reported the plan in March.
What he said did not reassure them. And what he did not say may have worried them even more.
What Zuckerberg told Meta employees about layoffs
Zuckerberg was direct about why the layoffs are happening. “We basically have two major cost centers in the company: compute infrastructure and people-oriented things,” he said in the session.
“If we’re investing more in one area to serve our community, then that means we have less capital to allocate to the other. So that means we do need to take down the size of the company somewhat.”
More Layoffs:
On whether more cuts are coming, he declined to offer certainty. “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. “I don’t. I don’t think anyone does.”
He also addressed a concern circulating internally: that AI tools are making human roles redundant. “Getting everyone internally to use AI tools and getting to do the work more efficiently is not the thing that’s driving layoffs,” he said.
But he added: “We’ll see how all this stuff trends,” Reuters noted.
What Meta’s CFO said about headcount
CFO Susan Li added a detail that is likely to unsettle employees further. Meta does not yet know what its “optimal” long-term size will be, given the pace of AI advancement, she said, according to Benzinga.
Li acknowledged that lower employee compensation costs are expected following the layoffs. But those savings will be offset this year by restructuring costs tied to the cuts themselves. The net financial benefit will come later, Benzinga noted.
The scale of layoffs already happening at Meta
The May 20 round alone is substantial. Meta plans to cut approximately 8,000 employees, representing roughly 10% of its 78,865-person global workforce, according to TNW. The company is also eliminating roughly 6,000 open roles before they are ever filled.
But May 20 is not the beginning of this process. In January, Meta cut roughly 1,000 to 1,500 Reality Labs employees and shut down several VR game studios, TNW noted. In March, it cut another 700 employees across at least five divisions. Zuckerberg’s total cuts since 2022 now stand at roughly 25,000.
The cuts touch teams across Reality Labs, the Facebook social division, recruiting, sales, and global operations. California WARN Act filings confirm 124 positions at Meta’s Burlingame office effective May 22 and 74 at its Sunnyvale facility effective May 29, KRON4 reported.
Additional cuts planned for the second half of 2026 have not been finalized in timing or scope, according to Reuters.
Why Meta is cutting jobs while generating record profits
This is where the employee backlash becomes understandable. Meta is not a company in distress. Its 2025 revenue reached $201 billion, up 22% year over year. Q1 2026 revenue came in at $56.31 billion, beating Wall Street expectations of $55.45 billion. Free cash flow for 2025 was $43.6 billion, according to TNW.
The cuts are being driven by the other side of the balance sheet. Meta raised its 2026 capital expenditure forecast to $125 billion to $145 billion, up from $115 billion to $135 billion. That spending is going into AI infrastructure, model development, and the buildout of Meta’s Superintelligence Labs under Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang, Benzinga confirmed.
Bank of America projects the restructuring will generate $7 billion to $8 billion in annualized savings, TNW noted. The question employees are asking is not whether the math works. It is whether a company generating $201 billion in annual revenue needs to lay off thousands of people to fund a $125 billion AI bet.
Key figures from Meta’s layoff announcement and town hall:
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Employees to be cut starting May 20: Approximately 8,000, or 10% of workforce
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Open roles being eliminated: Approximately 6,000
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Meta total cuts since 2022: Approximately 25,000
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Additional cuts planned for H2 2026, timing not finalized
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Meta 2025 revenue: $201 billion, up 22% year-over-year
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Meta 2026 capex guidance: $125 billion to $145 billion
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Projected annualized savings from restructuring: $7 billion to $8 billion, Bank of America estimated
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META share price at April 30 close: $611.91, down 8.55%
Sources: TNW, Reuters, Benzinga
How Meta employees are responding internally
The reaction inside Meta has not been quiet. Employees have openly criticized Zuckerberg and other company leaders on Meta’s internal message forum over the changes, based on copies of the comments viewed by Reuters.
The frustration is understandable. Meta grew its workforce by 6% last year, even as Zuckerberg was publicly saying AI would allow the company to do more with fewer people, according to TNW.
Many employees joined or stayed based on signals that the company was growing. The pivot to large-scale cuts feels abrupt. And the suggestion that more may follow gives them little certainty about their futures.
There is also the context of how these cuts arrived alongside a new employee monitoring initiative tracking mouse movements, clicks, and keystrokes. The combination of surveillance and layoffs has added to internal unease, Reuters noted.
What Meta’s headcount trimming means going forward
For employees, the April 30 town hall offered honesty but not comfort. Zuckerberg did not pretend the May job cuts are the end. He said he does not have a crystal ball. That is at least candid. But for someone wondering whether their role is secure, candor without clarity is its own kind of stress.
For investors, the picture is different. Annualized savings of $7 billion to $8 billion are meaningful. A leaner company spending aggressively on AI could emerge with stronger margins and a more competitive product stack. The stock dropped nearly 9% on April 30, but that reflected the earnings miss and capex hike as much as the layoffs.
Both groups grapple with the same uncertainty Zuckerberg acknowledged. Meta is making an enormous, expensive bet on AI. It does not yet know how many people it needs to execute that bet. And it is not done deciding.
Related: Mark Zuckerberg’s new AI bet will help avoid another metaverse
This story was originally published by TheStreet on May 2, 2026, where it first appeared in the Technology section. Add TheStreet as a Preferred Source by clicking here.