META
AI gets the budget, people get the memo
Meta’s latest earnings day follow-up came with a not-so-cheery message from Mark Zuckerberg: the company’s huge push into AI is directly driving layoffs. In plain English, Meta is trying to pay for more servers, chips, and infrastructure — and that means there’s less room in the budget for payroll.
The trade-off is brutal
Zuckerberg said Meta’s two biggest expenses are infrastructure and personnel, and when one side of the ledger gets bigger, the other has to shrink. That’s why the company is expected to cut about 10% of its workforce starting May 20, with more reductions reportedly possible later this year.
Wall Street gets the numbers, workers get the cost
This isn’t happening in a vacuum. Meta just posted first-quarter revenue of $56.31 billion, beating estimates, and adjusted EPS of $7.31. But even with the beat, the market is staring at a bigger AI spending bill: full-year capital expenditures were lifted to $125 billion-$145 billion, up from $115 billion-$135 billion.
Big picture: AI is expensive, and someone pays
Meta is basically telling investors, “Yes, the AI future looks shiny. No, it is not free.” The company’s stock dropped hard on the news, and the message to the rest of Big Tech is pretty clear: if you want the AI arms race trophy, you may need to bring a bigger budget — and a smaller payroll.