Meta up 3% in premarket amid mass layoff plans to offset AI spending
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Meta Shares were on the rise before U.S. markets opened on Thursday following news that the company plans to lay off more than 20% of its workforce to offset staggering AI spending plans this year.
Although the timing and details of the cuts have not yet been finalized, the tech giant’s top executives have told senior leaders to begin making plans to reduce headcount, three unnamed sources familiar with the matter told Reuters in an article published on Saturday. Its shares were last up 2.7% in premarket trading at 6:16 a.m. local time, after losing nearly 4% on Sunday.
Meta had approximately 79,000 employees The size of the layoffs announced by December 2025 could affect more than 15,000 workers. It would be the biggest layoff since late 2022, when CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Meta would cut 11,000 jobs and cut hiring as part of a sweeping cost-cutting strategy.
“This is a speculative report regarding theoretical approaches,” a Meta spokesperson told CNBC on Monday.
There will be more potential Meta business disruption as the tech giant doubles down on building expensive AI infrastructure and achieving efficiency gains from AI integrated into workflows.
Many companies have already announced plans for major AI-related layoffs in 2026. Jack Dorsey To obstruct He said the company would lay off 4,000 employees in February to enable it to “move faster with smaller, highly skilled teams using AI to automate more work.”
Meanwhile, Amazon It eliminated 16,000 roles in January in a bid to cut layers and bureaucracy amid plans to invest heavily in AI.
AI has been cited in more than 12,000 layoffs in the US so far in 2026, according to the consulting firm’s latest data Challenger Gray and Christmas.
Artificial intelligence spending will reach $135 billion
Meta announced in its fourth-quarter earnings reports in January that AI-related capital spending will be in the range of $115 billion to $135 billion this year, roughly double the amount it spent building out its new AI unit in 2025.
This is part of a combined system Including $700 billion tech hyperscalers Amazon, AlphabetAnd Microsoftplans to invest in artificial intelligence this year.
The plans have raised concerns among some investors about potentially unsustainable spending compared to the amount of revenue AI generates.
Zuckerberg said 2026 will be an important year for artificial intelligence as the company’s investment focuses on its mission to “create personal superintelligence.”
The company invested $14.3 billion in Scale AI last year. Meta ultimately kidnapped the group’s CEO, Alexandr Wang, and some of his top engineers and researchers.
“While we’ve seen significant layoffs at companies like Block, which shed 40 percent of its headcount ‘due to AI,’ if Meta is willing to reduce headcount at this scale while increasing its investment in AI, we think it points to a broader shift: AI is increasingly driving productivity,” Jefferies analysts wrote in a note Sunday. he said.
“This has significant implications not only for Meta but also across the broader internet/software landscape as investors reconsider the connection between headcount, growth and margins… These cuts are clearly being considered to offset rising AI infrastructure costs with significant AI-focused capital expenditure growth.”
