Almost six out of ten companies now admit they frame layoffs as “AI-driven” when the real reason is financial. Straight up. Into a survey. Block fired forty percent of its workforce and the stock jumped twenty-four percent the same day. Dorsey posted $2.87 billion in gross profit that quarter. Cloudflare axed eleven hundred people — a fifth of the company — while reporting record revenue up thirty-four percent. These aren’t companies in trouble. These are companies doing better than ever who figured out Wall Street pays you more per share when you have fewer employees.
Meta’s internal memos said the layoffs “enable the company to offset the cost of AI investments.” Not that AI does the work. That firing people funds the hardware. Seven hundred billion dollars in AI infrastructure spending this year, industry-wide, backed by headcount reductions at companies that have never been more profitable. Your job didn’t get automated. Your salary got reallocated. The press release called it innovation.