Meta to lay off 600 employees amid AI overhaul, top-tier staff retained

Meta's layoffs will hit employees in AI infrastructure, Fundamental Artificial Intelligence Research unit (FAIR) and other AI product teams

Meta will lay off about 600 employees from its artificial intelligence (AI) division as part of its broader effort to streamline operations and reduce organisational layers, Reuters reported. 

The decision was communicated in a memo from Alexandr Wang, Meta’s chief AI officer, who joined the company in June this year as part of its $14.3 billion investment in Scale AI. The lay off will affect staff across Meta’s AI infrastructure teams, the Fundamental Artificial Intelligence Research unit (FAIR), and other AI-related product roles.

 

Top AI hires retained

Employees in TBD Labs, which houses many of Meta’s high-profile AI recruits (working on large language models) brought in during the summer, will not be impacted by the layoffs, the news report said. Overseen by Wang, these employees were spared, reflecting CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s continued confidence in the company’s recent, expensive hires over some legacy staff. 

 

Within Meta, the AI division had become “bloated”, insiders said, with FAIR and product-focused teams competing for computing resources. The newly formed Superintelligence Labs, created with Wang’s leadership, inherited this oversized AI structure. The layoffs are designed to reduce redundancy and solidify Wang’s influence over Meta’s AI strategy. 

 

Focus on AI growth

Meta has been intensifying its AI efforts to stay competitive with rivals like OpenAI and Google. The company has invested billions into building AI infrastructure and recruiting top talent. Following the layoffs, the workforce at Superintelligence Labs is now just under 3,000 employees. 

Affected employees were notified that their termination date is November 21 and are currently 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,” the memo said. “You may use this time to search for another role at Meta.” 

Meta is offering 16 weeks of severance pay plus two additional weeks for each completed year of service, “minus your notice period”.

 

Leadership push and AI investments

Zuckerberg’s frustration with Meta’s AI progress grew after the April release of Llama 4 models received a lukewarm response from developers. To accelerate development, he announced Meta Superintelligence Labs, led by Wang and former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman. 

In July, Meta projected total expenses for 2025 between $114 billion and $118 billion, expecting further increases due to AI initiatives. On Tuesday, Meta struck a $27 billion deal with Blue Owl Capital to fund the Hyperion data centre in rural Louisiana, which Zuckerberg said will be large enough to cover a “significant part of the footprint of Manhattan”.