Oracle cuts thousands of jobs as AI tools reduce headcount requirements
Oracle laid off a large number of employees on Tuesday in what senior managers described publicly as a significant reduction in force, occurring as the company accelerates capital spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure.
Michael Shepard, a senior Oracle manager who said he was not personally affected, posted on LinkedIn that the cuts fell across "senior engineers, architects, operations leaders, program managers, and technical specialists." He was explicit that the redundancies were not performance-based. "The individuals affected were not let go because of anything they did or didn't do," he wrote. His post was one of dozens appearing on the platform Tuesday.
One Oracle employee told the BBC that as many as 10,000 staff may have been affected, citing a drop in headcount visible on Oracle's internal Slack messaging system. Former employee Kendall Levin confirmed her role was "eliminated as part of the company's mass reduction in force" and said affected staff received early-morning emails informing them of their departure along with one month of severance.
Oracle declined to comment.
The company's co-chief executive Mike Silicia said earlier this month that AI coding tools were enabling "smaller engineering teams to deliver more complete solutions to our customers more quickly," and cited AI-assisted sales lead generation and website development as specific internal applications. Co-chief executive Clayton Magouyrk said the company's operating model was "optimized to ensure profitability" even as it scales capital-intensive AI infrastructure at an "unprecedented" pace.
Oracle has committed to spending at least $50bn on infrastructure this year and raised $50bn in debt to fund further AI capacity. The company is also a participant in the Stargate initiative, the $500bn US data centre programme backed by OpenAI, SoftBank and Abu Dhabi's MGX fund, with support from President Donald Trump.
Oracle's stock rose on the day, with the Wall Street Journal noting investors regard the company as a barometer for the financial prospects of artificial intelligence broadly. The market's positive reaction suggests investors view the headcount reduction as consistent with a capital-intensive growth model that leans on AI productivity rather than labour scale.
The dynamic at Oracle echoes public positions taken by Meta's Mark Zuckerberg and Block's Jack Dorsey, both of whom have cited AI efficiency gains while overseeing layoffs at their own companies this year. Other technology groups including Amazon, Pinterest and Epic Games have also cut jobs in 2026.
