Meta confirmed on Thursday it is cutting roughly 10% of its workforce—about 8,000 employees—with the axe falling on May 20. Another 6,000 open roles will simply be closed, never filled. The announcement came via an internal memo from chief people officer Janelle Gale, who acknowledged the plan had already leaked and decided to get ahead of it. The numbers are large, the date is set, but the names aren’t—and that one detail is turning the next four weeks inside the company into something employees are already calling “28 days of hell.”
Meta employees flood internal posts with dark humor, questions, and dread
On Meta’s internal platform, employees responded to Gale’s post with a mix of jokes, elephant memes (a nod to leadership finally addressing the elephant in the room), and pointed questions about stock vests and travel restrictions. On the anonymous workplace app Blind, the mood was heavier. One post, according to Business Insider, was simply titled “28 days of hell.” Another asked: “How are you motivating yourself to work for the next 1 month with layoffs confirmed?” A reply cut right to it: “I’m motivating myself to do stuff that I can put on my resume for my next job lol.“One employee told Business Insider that the confirmation, despite its weight, actually brought some relief—the cuts had been so widely discussed internally that at least the uncertainty had a shape now. But not everyone felt that way. Another said the announcement added pressure to show results fast.“I’m a little stressed about making impact in the next month,” they told Business Insider.
Meta is spending aggressively on AI as it tries to close the gap on OpenAI and Google
The layoffs are framed by leadership as a necessary trade-off. Meta is projecting capital expenditure of $115 billion to $135 billion this year—nearly double last year’s $72 billion—much of it earmarked for AI infrastructure. Zuckerberg has made no secret that AI is the company’s dominant priority, and roles not aligned with that direction are increasingly hard to justify.US employees being let go will receive 16 weeks of base pay plus two additional weeks per year of service, along with 18 months of COBRA health coverage.For some at Meta, it isn’t even their first rodeo. One Blind user, a veteran of multiple layoff cycles at the company since 2022, wasn’t exactly surprised—but wasn’t exactly reassured either. “I assume I’m always two months away from being laid off, no matter what leadership says,” they wrote.