In a stunning announcement that rippled across Silicon Valley, Meta abruptly laid off 600 employees from its Meta AI Lab on October 22, 2025. The decision, announced by Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang, marks a major strategic pivot for a company that had recently been expanding its artificial intelligence ambitions at record pace.
A Sudden Shift from Growth to Retrenchment
Just months before the layoffs, Meta had been on an aggressive hiring spree—investing $14.3 billion in Scale AI and appointing its founder, Alexandr Wang, as its new AI chief. The company’s superintelligence lab, once hailed as the “crown jewel” of Meta’s innovation engine, had grown to thousands of researchers and engineers.
By mid-summer, however, the tone began to change. Hiring froze, and internal reports described the lab as “bloated” and “slow-moving.” One former engineer told TechCrunch that the teams suffered from “too many voices, not enough direction.”
Employee Reactions: “We Were Helping Build the Future”
The layoffs affected hundreds of staff who had moved to the Bay Area or turned down other offers to work on Meta’s most ambitious AI projects. Severance packages included several months of pay and extended benefits, but the specifics remained unclear.
