Meta is both hiring and cutting
Meta has detailed California layoffs in filings while simultaneously pushing major AI work — a picture of reallocation rather than simple shrinkage that means teams are being reshaped toward different priorities. The state filings make the labour reshuffle explicit: some groups are being cut even as the company invests in new AI product work, so headcount counts are changing at the team level. (latimes.com)
Meta is cutting roughly 200 jobs in Burlingame and Sunnyvale even as it rolls out a new artificial intelligence model and new artificial intelligence glasses features in the same month. The split is visible in California layoff filings on one side and Meta’s own product announcements on the other. (aol.com) (about.fb.com) The California filings say the affected Meta workers include engineers, recruiters, product managers, and other staff, with departures expected on May 29. Meta told the Los Angeles Times that teams “regularly restructure” and that it tries to find other roles for people whose jobs are affected. (aol.com) These are not companywide shutdown numbers on the scale of 2023. Meta reported 78,865 employees as of December 2025, so a 200-person cut is a targeted reshuffle inside a much larger business. (investor.atmeta.com) (aol.com) The background is that Meta is spending at a speed that forces tradeoffs. In full-year 2025, the company posted $200.97 billion in revenue and spent $72.22 billion on capital expenditures, much of it tied to the computing hardware and data centers needed for artificial intelligence. (investor.atmeta.com) Mark Zuckerberg has been explicit about where he wants that money and talent to go. In Meta’s January 28, 2026 earnings release, he said he was “looking forward to advancing personal superintelligence” in 2026. (investor.atmeta.com) That strategy showed up again on April 8, when Meta introduced Muse Spark, which it called its most powerful model yet. Meta said the model already powers the Meta AI app and website and will roll out to WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, Messenger, and artificial intelligence glasses in the coming weeks. (about.fb.com 1) (about.fb.com 2) Meta is also pushing hardware that depends on that software. On March 31, the company announced new Ray-Ban Meta glasses that support nearly all prescriptions, plus software updates including hands-free nutrition tracking and Meta AI WhatsApp summaries. (about.fb.com) So the picture is not “Meta is shrinking.” The cleaner read is that Meta is moving people and money away from some virtual reality and support roles while pouring resources into models, chips, data centers, and consumer artificial intelligence products. (aol.com) (about.fb.com) (investor.atmeta.com) That is why layoff notices and hiring plans can both be true at once. At Meta in April 2026, the headcount story is less about one total number and more about which teams are losing seats while artificial intelligence teams gain them. (aol.com)
