META Stock Gains 3% to $627 Today After Report of 20% Workforce Cuts and 15,000 Potential Job Losses

Meta Platforms stock moved sharply higher on Monday after reports that the company may be preparing another major round of job cuts while accelerating one of the most expensive artificial intelligence spending pushes in Big Tech. Shares of META gained about 3% and traded near $627 as investors reacted to reports that the company could reduce its workforce by as much as 20%, a move that would potentially affect more than 15,000 employees out of Meta’s roughly 79,000 global staff.

The stock reaction showed exactly where Wall Street’s attention is right now. In this market, cost-cutting tied to artificial intelligence is being treated less as a warning sign and more as a signal that a company may be able to protect margins while still funding the infrastructure needed to compete in the AI race. That appears to be what drove the early enthusiasm around Meta, even though the headline itself centred on possible layoffs rather than a product launch or revenue upgrade.

According to Reuters, top Meta executives have told senior leaders to begin planning for layoffs that could reach 20% or more of the company’s workforce. No final number and no date have been set, and a Meta spokesperson described the report as speculative reporting about theoretical approaches. Even with that pushback, the market treated the possibility seriously because the scale would make it the company’s biggest workforce reduction since the major restructuring rounds in late 2022 and early 2023, when Meta eliminated more than 21,000 jobs.

If the latest cuts do move ahead at the threshold discussed in weekend reports, the impact would be enormous. A reduction of 20% from a workforce of about 79,000 would mean more than 15,000 jobs disappearing. Investors did not focus on the employment shock nearly as much as they focused on what the cuts could mean for operating efficiency at a time when Meta is spending aggressively on AI chips, computing systems, and new data centre capacity.

That spending plan is the other side of the story, and it is one of the biggest reasons META stock found support. Meta has said its AI-related capital expenditures this year are expected to land between $115 billion and $135 billion, roughly double what it spent in 2025. That kind of increase is extraordinary even by mega-cap technology standards. It reflects the company’s determination to build out custom AI chips, expand data centres, and support the large-scale infrastructure needed for advanced models and AI-powered products as Mark Zuckerberg pushes toward what he has described as personal superintelligence.

Meta is not only spending on hardware. The company has also been spending aggressively to build its superintelligence team, with some recruitment deals for top AI researchers reportedly running into the hundreds of millions of dollars. That contrast is striking: while one part of the company may be shrinking, another is attracting some of the richest compensation packages in the industry. It shows how sharply priorities are shifting inside major technology firms as AI becomes the centre of the investment case.

Zuckerberg had already hinted at this direction earlier in the year. In January, he said he was seeing efficiency gains from Meta’s AI investments and noted that projects that once required large teams could now be completed by a single person. That comment now looks more significant in light of the layoff report. Investors appear to be connecting the dots between those earlier efficiency remarks and the idea that Meta may be redesigning its workforce around a future in which AI handles a growing share of internal work.

The market backdrop also helped. Meta shares rose alongside broader gains in large technology stocks as markets steadied after recent volatility and ongoing geopolitical tension between the US and Iran. That wider rebound added fuel to the move, but the company-specific headline clearly did the heavy lifting. Traders saw a story in which one of the biggest internet companies in the world may be cutting labour costs while doubling down on the infrastructure required for the next phase of AI competition.

Wall Street analysts quickly framed the report in those terms. Jefferies analysts said over the weekend that if Meta does proceed on the scale described, it would signal a broader shift in the sector: AI is increasingly driving productivity, and investors may need to reassess the traditional relationship between headcount, growth, and margins across internet and software companies. That interpretation helps explain why a layoff story sent the shares higher rather than lower. In the current environment, the possibility of doing more with fewer people is being rewarded.

Meta is not alone. Amazon cut about 16,000 positions in January, and Block went even further the following month by reducing close to half its staff. Jack Dorsey pointed to growing AI capabilities as one reason Block could operate with a leaner structure. That pattern is becoming one of the defining features of the current tech cycle. Companies are reducing payrolls not simply because demand is weak, but because the capital needed to compete in AI is so large that workforce reductions are becoming one way to fund chips, computing power, and model development.

For Meta investors, that creates a complicated but powerful narrative. The company is asking the market to believe that near-term pain in staffing can translate into stronger long-term productivity and profitability. The restructuring is meant to align staffing with Meta’s long-range AI development goals while making the overall business more efficient. The stock’s rally suggests that investors are willing to give the company the benefit of the doubt, at least for now.

That optimism still comes with risk. Meta is delaying some AI model ambitions even as it expands infrastructure, and execution will matter. Investors will be watching whether the company can turn this spending surge into real product performance, monetisation gains, and lasting margin improvement. But Monday’s move made one thing clear: for now, Wall Street is willing to reward the combination of aggressive AI investment and tighter cost control. Coverage from CNBC has reflected the same market logic, with investors increasingly treating AI-led efficiency as a major driver of future earnings power.

META’s rise to around $627 does not settle the longer-term debate over whether the company’s spending pace is sustainable. It does, however, underline how investors are reading the moment. A possible 15,000-plus job reduction, a capital expenditure plan of up to $135 billion, and a growing belief that AI can replace work once done by large teams have combined into a message the market currently wants to hear. As long as that view holds, Meta’s AI-first restructuring story may remain one of the most closely watched themes in big-cap tech.