Microsoft layoffs - 4,800 total jobs cut, 3,200 jobs cut from Xbox
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LayoffHedge
MICROSOFT JUST MADE IT OFFICIAL. 4,800 JOBS GONE, AND XBOX TAKES THE BIGGEST GAMING LAYOFF EVER ANNOUNCED.
Here is everything going on today.
The cuts: 4,800 people, 2.1% of the company. Xbox absorbs 3,200 of them, with 1,600 walked out on day one. That breaks the record for a gaming layoff, 1,900, which Microsoft also set in 2024. The rest lands on sales and consulting.
The Xbox CEO: Asha Sharma took over in February when Phil Spencer retired. She came from Instacart and Meta with zero game industry experience. Her own words to staff: "Our business today is not healthy." The division lost "64 cents for every dollar we invested." Her fix: "We must reset Xbox." Four studios are leaving Microsoft. Double Fine and Compulsion go independent while Ninja Theory and Undead Labs move to new owners. Arkane Lyon sits in a "strategic review."
None of this came out of nowhere. Watch the sequence:
Last year Microsoft cut roughly 15,000 jobs across two rounds.
In April it launched the first buyout program in company history, the "Rule of 70," offering about 9,000 older US workers packages to leave. A third took them.
In May, LinkedIn, which Microsoft owns outright, cut 875 jobs in a quarter where revenue grew 12%.
Through all of it, Microsoft has ranked as the 6th largest H-1B filer in America since 2020.
Now follow the money. Microsoft spent over $100 billion on AI infrastructure in the fiscal year that just ended. Four days before these layoffs, it announced a $2.5 billion unit that embeds 6,000 AI engineers inside customer companies. It cut 4,800 employees the same week it funded 6,000 AI engineers.
And CEO Satya Nadella, paid $96.5 million last year, has not said a word. The announcement came from the head of HR, who told employees "AI is changing how work gets done" and that everyday tasks "can now be automated."
The market is not buying the story. Microsoft just closed its worst month since 2000, down about 20%, more than $570 billion in value erased.
Xbox CEO Asha Sharma Memo
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