Meta Plans 20% Workforce Reduction — ~15,800 Positions — to Fund $135B AI Infrastructure Capex in 2026

TechCrunch·medium signal

Reuters reported Meta is planning its largest workforce cut since 2022 (up to 20% of ~79K employees, ~15,800 positions) to offset AI infrastructure spending doubling from $72B in 2025 to as much as $135B capex in 2026, driven by LLaMA compute scaling and acquisitions of AI agent startups including Moltbook and Manus. Meta stock rose 3% premarket on the news, signaling markets read the cuts as financial discipline. Directly echoes Thompson's Stratechery thesis: companies cutting employees to rebuild at scale with agents.