When Bernstein analyst Mark Shmulik sent a note to clients about Meta’s reported plans to cut 20% or more of its roughly 79,000-person workforce, he issued a warning. If Meta succeeds in redrawing the blueprint for an AI-enabled organization, he wrote, “others will rush to replicate it,” potentially triggering “a cascade of hurried pivots, half-formed strategies, and reactive restructuring across the ecosystem.”
The math alone is striking. Even at a 20% headcount reduction, Shmulik estimates Meta could realize $2 billion to $4 billion in cost savings this year and $5 billion to $8 billion in 2027 — translating to 3%–5% EPS upside in 2026 and 4%–7% in 2027. But he was quick to note the savings are more likely to be redeployed into AI infrastructure than returned to shareholders. Meta is already planning to spend $600 billion on data centers by 2028 and recently acquired AI startup Manus for at least $2 billion.
What makes the moment significant isn’t the scale of the cuts, but the context. Less than three weeks ago, Jack Dorsey laid off nearly half of Block’s 4,000-person workforce and made a blunt prediction to investors: within a year, most companies would reach the same conclusion. He didn’t have to wait the whole year.
