April 23, 2026
Metaverse hangover hits payroll
Meta to cut 10% of jobs, or 8k employees
8,000 out as Meta “gets efficient” — internet blames the metaverse and fears a bigger slump
TLDR: Meta will cut 10% of staff (about 8,000) and freeze 6,000 open roles starting May 20 as it pivots from its failed metaverse bet to AI. Commenters split between macro-doom, worries over who gets axed, and memes that “human‑level AI” already took everyone’s jobs
Meta is swinging the axe again: a reported 10% cut, or about 8,000 people, with another 6,000 open roles left unfilled, starting May 20, per Bloomberg and earlier hints from Reuters. The internal memo frames it as “efficiency” to fund other investments. Translation, according to the comments: the metaverse bill came due, and now AI (see Meta’s new Muse Spark) is the shiny distraction. The mood? Grim, salty, and meme-heavy.
Top worry: who’s actually on the chopping block. One commenter asks if it’s “programmers only or across the company,” capturing the anxiety rippling through product, design, and ops. Others zoom out: pointing to similar cuts at Oracle and Amazon, the thread argues this is a wider corporate storm, with some insisting the bad news isn’t about AI at all, but the economy. Cue the doomposts: “It’s like the economy is struggling or something,” sighs one user, while another drops a melancholic essay link about America’s malaise.
Then come the jokes. The crowd roasts Meta’s past “tens of billions” metaverse spend and quips that “AGI” — artificial general intelligence, the sci-fi level stuff — must have been “achieved internally” since humans are getting replaced. The split: efficiency truthers vs. metaverse hangover skeptics vs. meme-lords. No matter the camp, everyone agrees: the vibes are bad, and May 20 is going to hurt.
Key Points
- •Meta plans to cut 10% of its workforce, affecting about 8,000 employees.
- •The company will not hire for 6,000 currently open roles.
- •Layoffs are scheduled to begin on May 20, according to an internal memo cited by Bloomberg.
- •Chief People Officer Janelle Gale said the cuts aim to improve efficiency and offset other investments.
- •Meta has invested heavily in AI and previously spent tens of billions on metaverse efforts; it recently launched the Muse Spark AI product.