Microsoft Offers 7% Buyouts

Microsoft is offering voluntary retirement buyouts to a slice of its U.S. workforce, its first program of that kind in the company’s 51-year history. (cnbc.com) The one-time program applies to U.S. employees at the senior director level and below whose age plus years of service add up to 70 or more, according to a memo reported Thursday, April 23. Employees and managers are set to get details on May 7, and workers on sales incentive plans are excluded. (cnbc.com) About 7% of Microsoft’s U.S. workforce is eligible, according to CNBC and Bloomberg. Microsoft reported 125,000 U.S. employees and 228,000 full-time employees worldwide as of June 30, 2025, which puts the eligible U.S. group at roughly 8,750 people. (cnbc.com) (microsoft.com) (bloomberg.com) The move lands as Microsoft keeps pouring money into the computing backbone behind artificial intelligence, including data centers packed with chips, power equipment and cooling systems. In January 2025, the company said it expected to spend $80 billion in fiscal 2025 on data centers built to train AI models and run AI and cloud applications. (cnbc.com) Microsoft reaffirmed that spending plan in February 2025 after investor concern about infrastructure adjustments, saying it still expected to spend more than $80 billion in capital expenditures before the fiscal year ended in June 2025. More than half of that planned infrastructure spending was set for the United States. (cnbc.com 1) (cnbc.com 2) The buyouts follow earlier cost cuts. CNBC reported that Microsoft reduced staff through multiple layoff rounds last year even as Chief Executive Satya Nadella told shareholders in the 2025 annual report that Azure revenue topped $75 billion and company revenue reached $281.7 billion. (cnbc.com) (microsoft.com) The company is also changing how it pays and reviews employees. Amy Coleman, Microsoft’s executive vice president and chief people officer, said in the memo that managers will no longer have to tie stock awards directly to cash bonuses, and the review process will shrink to five pay options from nine. (cnbc.com) Coleman said the company’s “hope” is to let eligible employees leave “on their own terms, with generous company support.” The next test for investors comes on April 29, 2026, when Microsoft’s investor relations site says the company is scheduled to report earnings. (cnbc.com) (microsoft.com)