According to Reuters, Mehta is considering large-scale layoffs that could affect more than 20% of the company’s workforce.
These layoffs could help Facebook’s parent company offset its aggressive spending on AI infrastructure and AI-related acquisitions and hiring. According to a recent report, Mehta employed nearly 79,000 people as of December 31.
“This is speculative reporting on a theoretical approach,” Mehta said in a statement.
The report comes as a number of tech companies (the latest on the block) have announced sweeping layoffs that they say are necessary as AI automates more tasks. But some experts, even executives like OpenAI’s Sam Altman, have suggested that many of these cuts are “AI washing,” with executives using AI to cover up other problems, like overhiring during the pandemic.
The last time Mehta announced layoffs of this scale was in November 2022, when it laid off 11,000 people, followed by an additional 10,000 in March 2023.
