Meta just pulled a shocking move ahead of the holiday season. The tech giant slashed roughly 600 roles from its Superintelligence Labs division, gutting a major part of its artificial intelligence operation. First reported by Axios, the layoffs were confirmed in a memo from Meta’s chief AI officer Alexandr Wang.
“By reducing the size of our team, fewer conversations will be required to make a decision, and each person will be more load-bearing and have more scope and impact,” Wang wrote.
Translation? Meta is trying to move faster by cutting its own brainpower.
To cushion the blow, Wang said Meta is helping the affected workers find roles elsewhere in the company.
“This is a talented group of individuals, and we need their skills in other parts of the company,” he added.
But the timing is wild. Meta is still pushing forward with its high-priority TBD Lab, a new elite unit tasked with creating next-gen AI models. So why the sudden purge?
While Meta frames this as a strategic shift, it looks more like a dramatic pivot in a high-stakes AI race.
