Big Tech

The European Commission just slapped Meta with a regulatory uppercut. On April 15, Brussels formally rejected Meta’s attempt to charge rival AI companies for access to WhatsApp’s 2 billion users — and threatened to force the tech giant to restore free access for competitors like Microsoft’s Copilot, OpenAI, and Perplexity. This isn’t just a legal skirmish. It’s the fight that decides whether you get to choose your AI assistant, or whether the company that owns your messaging app chooses for you. ...

Here’s a number that should stop you cold: Meta is planning to fire roughly 16,000 people — 20% of its entire workforce — while simultaneously doubling its AI spending to $135 billion in 2026. Fire the people. Fund the machines. It’s the most honest statement Big Tech has made about where things are going. The Layoffs Aren’t About Survival This isn’t 2022’s post-pandemic correction. Meta’s advertising business is still a cash machine. These cuts are proactive. The company isn’t trimming because it’s hurting — it’s reallocating capital from human labor to compute infrastructure. ...

Silicon Valley has a new business model: fire humans, hire GPUs. Meta is planning to cut roughly 20% of its workforce — about 16,000 people — to offset the staggering cost of its AI infrastructure ambitions. Reuters broke the story on March 14, citing sources who say top executives have already told senior leaders to start identifying where the axe falls. Meta spokesperson Andy Stone called it “speculative reporting about theoretical approaches.” Translation: we’re not announcing it yet. ...

Seven of the most powerful tech companies on Earth walked into the White House on March 4th and signed a piece of paper promising your electricity bill won’t go up because of AI. If that sounds too neat, you’re paying attention. What They Actually Signed Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle, and xAI committed to “build, bring, or buy” all the power their data centers consume. They’ll cover grid infrastructure upgrades, negotiate separate rate structures with utilities, and pay for electricity whether they use it or not. ...