Meta lays off 600 from ‘bloated’ AI unit as Wang cements leadership

Meta will lay off roughly 600 employees within its artificial intelligence unit as the company looks to reduce layers and operate more nimbly, a spokesperson confirmed to CNBC on Wednesday.

The company announced the cuts in a memo from its chief AI officer, Alexandr Wang, who was hired in June as part of Meta’s $14.3 billion investment in Scale AI. Workers across Meta’s AI infrastructure units, Fundamental Artificial Intelligence Research unit (FAIR) and other product-related positions will be impacted.

However, the cuts did not impact employees within TBD Labs, which includes many of the top-tier AI hires brought into the social media company this summer, people familiar with the matter told CNBC. Those employees, overseen by Wang, were spared by the layoffs, underscoring Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s bet on his expensive hires versus the legacy employees, the people said.

Within Meta, the AI unit was considered to be bloated, with teams like FAIR and more product-oriented groups often vying for computing resources, the people said. When the company’s new hires joined the company to create Superintelligence Labs, it inherited the oversized Meta AI unit, they said. The layoffs are an attempt by Meta to continue trim the department and further cement Wang’s role in steering the company’s AI strategy.

Meta has been aggressively overhauling its approach to AI in recent months as it works to keep pace with rivals like OpenAI and Google, pouring billions of dollars into infrastructure projects and recruitment.

Following the cuts, Meta’s Superintelligence Labs’ workforce now sits at just under 3,000, the people said.

Meta notified at least some employees on Wednesday that Nov. 21 is their termination date and, until then, they’re in a “non-working notice period.”

“During this time, your internal access will be removed and you do not need to do any additional work for Meta,” said the message, which was viewed by CNBC. “You may use this time to search for another role at Meta.”

The company also said it’s paying 16 weeks of severance plus two weeks for every completed year of service, “minus your notice period.”

CEO Mark Zuckerberg had grown frustrated with Meta’s progress in AI, especially after the release of its Llama 4 models in April received a lukewarm response from developers.

Following Meta’s massive investment in Scale AI, Zuckerberg unveiled a new unit called Meta Superintelligence Labs that’s made up of top AI researchers and engineers. The group is led by Wang and former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman.

During the company’s second-quarter earnings call in July, Meta said it expects its total expenses for 2025 to come in the range of $114 billion to $118 billion, raising the low end of its previous outlook. That number is only expected to increase, as Meta said its AI initiatives will “result in a 2026 year-over-year expense growth rate that is above the 2025 expense growth.”

Meta is scheduled to report third-quarter results next week.

On Tuesday, Meta announced a $27 billion deal with Blue Owl Capital to fund and develop its massive Hyperion data center in rural Louisiana. The data center is expected to be large enough to cover a “significant part of the footprint of Manhattan,” Zuckerberg said in a post in July.

Axios was first to report the layoffs.

— CNBC’s Salvador Rodriguez contributed to this report

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