Billionaire investor Chamath Palihapitiya says AI isn’t the real force behind this week’s wave of US job cuts.
In a new post on X, the venture capitalist says the latest round of workforce cuts, totaling roughly 21,800 across companies like Meta, Target and Nestlé, has little to do with automation.
Palihapitiya, who made early bets on Facebook and Slack, said the deeper motivation may stem from a different kind of disruption, one pioneered by fellow billionaire Elon Musk.
“Friend posted this in a group chat and my immediate thought was: These aren’t AI job losses. But they may very likely be ‘Elon/X’ job losses.”
He points to Musk’s 2022 decision to dismiss most of Twitter’s workforce and still maintain operations.
“He fired 80% of Twitter, and the company is operating the same/better.
Maybe many other companies see that and now also believe they can do something similar (albeit less extreme).”
Earlier this week, a Meta internal memo obtained by Axios showed that about 600 roles are being eliminated from the tech giant’s superintelligence lab, with cuts spanning its FAIR research, AI product and AI infrastructure teams.
Meta’s chief AI officer, Alexandr Wang, said the move is designed to streamline decision-making and reduce internal 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.”
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