Meta layoffs: Mark Zuckerberg-led firm to cut 600 jobs in AI Superintelligence Labs after pouring billions into project

Months after he went on a billion dollar splurge acquiring industry names for Meta's ambitious artificial intelligence project, Mark Zuckerberg's AI Superintelligence Labs plans to fire around 600 employees with aim to be more competitive, Bloomberg reported citing an internal memo.

Employees of Meta's AI unit were informed of their job cuts on October 22, as per an internal memo, it added. Notably, Meta's newly formed TBD Lab group, which includes many of the highly-paid recent hires have not been hit, as per the report.

What has Meta's AI Chief Alexandr Wang said?

Meta Platform's chief AI officer Alexandr Wang in the memo to employees said that the move is aimed to increasing efficiency and reducing bureaucracy.

“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,” he wrote.

Laid off workers to get jobs in Meta?

A source told Bloomberg that Meta is encouraging the fired workers to apply for jobs in other departments. The person said that the company plans to keep hiring for its AI teams moving forward, as per the report.

The job cuts were first reported by online publication Axios.

Notably, the Wall Street Journal on August 20 reported that Meta has frozen hiring for its AI division. “All that's happening here is some basic organisational planning: creating a solid structure for our new superintelligence efforts after bringing people on board and undertaking yearly budgeting and planning exercises,” a spokesperson for Meta told Reuters about the hiring freeze.

AI race heating up: Mark Zuckerberg spending aggresively

The downsizing is the latest move in the heated AI race by Meta and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who’s spending aggressively to keep pace with rivals like OpenAI and Alphabet Inc.’s Google.

Meta has spent billions acquiring top talent from around the industry, including a $14.3 billion investment in data labeling startup Scale AI, which led to Wang joining Meta and leading its AI efforts.

Speaking to The Information in July, Mark Zuckerberg called reports on Meta's million dollar pay packages to poach AI staff from competitors “inaccurate”, but did not elaborate on the actual numbers. When asked about the alleged “$100-200 million” pay packages for Meta's “Superintelligence” AI team, he called it a “hot market” adding that it makes “sense” to spend big on gaining the right talent.

The team reportedly onboarded 50 staff, including poached employees from Apple, Anthropic, xAI, Google, and OpenAI for packages up to $100 million.

By August, at least three employees had left the company, according to a report by Wired. Rishabh Agarwal, Avi Verma and Ethan Knight left Meta, with the latter two back at Sam Altman-led OpenAI.

Altman reportedly criticised the poaching in an internal memo to staff which called Meta's moves “distasteful”, adding, “I’ve lost track of how many people from here they’ve tried to get to be their Chief Scientist.”

(With inputs from Bloomberg)