Meta Lays Off 600 Employees from its AI Unit as Wang Strengthens Leadership

A spokeswoman confirmed to CNBC on 22 October that Meta will lay off some 600 workers in its artificial intelligence division as part of its efforts to streamline operations and cut layers. Alexandr Wang, the company’s chief AI officer, who was brought on board in June as part of Meta’s $14.3 billion investment in Scale AI, wrote a memo outlining the cuts.

Employees at the Fundamental Artificial Intelligence Research unit (FAIR), Meta’s AI infrastructure units, and other roles involving products will be affected. According to those familiar with the situation, TBD Labs staff members, including many of the top-tier AI hires recruited into the social network company last summer, were unaffected by the layoffs, CNBC said.

According to the people, those workers under Wang’s supervision were exempt from the layoffs, highlighting Mark Zuckerberg’s wager on his pricey hires rather than the company’s long-standing staff.

Why Meta is Opting for Layoffs?

According to CNBC’s report, teams like FAIR and more product-focused units frequently competed for computing resources, making Meta’s AI section appear fat. They claimed that the company’s enormous Meta AI unit was passed down to the new hires as they joined to establish Superintelligence Labs. The layoffs are part of Meta’s ongoing effort to reduce the department and strengthen Wang’s position as the company’s AI leader.

In an effort to stay ahead of competitors like OpenAI and Google, Meta has been drastically changing its approach to AI in recent months. The company has been investing billions of dollars in hiring and infrastructure projects. According to the persons, Meta’s Superintelligence Labs now employs just under 3,000 people after the layoffs. On 22 October, Meta informed at least a few workers that they would be terminated on November 21 and that they would be placed in a “non-working notice period” until then.

The note, which CNBC saw, stated, “Your internal access will be removed during this time, and you do not need to do any additional work for Meta.” “You can look for another position at Meta during this time.” Additionally, the corporation stated that it will give 16 weeks of severance pay plus an additional two weeks for each year of service that has been completed, “minus your notice period.” CEO Mark Zuckerberg had become dissatisfied with Meta’s AI advancements, particularly after developers responded ambivalently to the company’s April release of its Llama 4 models.

Meta Cutting Down on its Expanses

Meta raised the low end of its prior estimate during its July second-quarter results call, stating that it anticipates its total expenses for 2025 to fall between $114 billion and $118 billion. Since Meta said that its AI activities will lead to a 2026 year-over-year expense growth rate that is higher than the 2025 expense growth, that number is only anticipated to rise. 

Zuckerberg announced a new division dubbed Meta Superintelligence Labs, which is composed of leading AI researchers and engineers, after Meta made a significant investment in Scale AI. Wang and former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman are in charge of the organisation. Meta and Blue Owl Capital announced a $27 billion agreement on October 21 to finance and build the gigantic Hyperion data centre in rural Louisiana. In a July post, Zuckerberg stated that the data centre would likely be big enough to occupy a “significant part of the footprint of Manhattan”.