Software giant Oracle disclosed in a regulatory filing that it has eliminated 21,000 positions over the past year, representing nearly 13 percent of its workforce, as the software giant accelerates AI integration across its operations.
Forbes reports that Oracle, founded by billionaire Larry Ellison, now employs 141,000 full-time workers, down from 162,000 a year earlier, according to the annual filing. Oracle explicitly attributed the reductions to what it described as the “adoption and deployment of AI technologies across our operations,” and cautioned that this restructuring initiative “may continue to result in reductions to our workforce.”
The Oracle disclosure arrives amid a sweeping wave of AI-driven job eliminations rippling through the technology sector and beyond. Career services firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported that the tech industry has shed more than 123,000 positions so far in 2026, with artificial intelligence now surpassing other factors as the leading stated cause for layoffs. The firm documented 38,579 AI-attributed cuts in May alone and 87,714 year-to-date, marking the highest monthly total for tech sector reductions since August 2024.
Several prominent technology companies have joined Oracle in openly citing AI as the impetus for workforce reductions. Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince acknowledged that artificial intelligence prompted his company’s decision to eliminate 20 percent of its global staff, approximately 1,000 employees, explaining in an op-ed that heightened AI deployment rendered numerous middle management, operations, auditing, finance, legal and compliance roles unnecessary. Cisco Systems announced 4,000 job cuts with direct attribution to AI adoption, while Meta informed 7,000 workers they would be reassigned to AI initiatives as part of a broader 10 percent workforce reduction.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong directed employees to “leverage AI across every facet of our jobs” when announcing roughly 700 cuts, explaining that some teams would be pared to single individuals performing previously multi-person responsibilities with AI assistance. “In short: AI is bringing a profound shift in how companies operate, and we’re reshaping Coinbase to lead in this new era,” Armstrong said. “This is a new way of working, and we need to leverage AI across every facet of our jobs.”
Snap CEO Evan Spiegel informed employees that 1,000 positions would be eliminated because “rapid advancements in artificial intelligence” would enable smaller teams to accomplish equivalent work, projecting $500 million in savings by late 2026. Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes stated he “fundamentally believes people and AI create the best outcomes” while announcing 1,600 cuts to “self-fund further investment in AI.” Block, Jack Dorsey’s company, removed more than 4,000 jobs representing nearly half its staff in a restructuring to build smaller, AI-enabled teams.
Industry leaders have offered divergent perspectives on the trajectory of AI-related employment disruption. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang criticized executives who attribute layoffs to artificial intelligence, calling such explanations “lazy” and expressing personal disapproval: “I really hate that,” he said. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has similarly accused companies of “AI washing” by incorrectly blaming unrelated workforce reductions on artificial intelligence.
Breitbart News social media director Wynton Hall, author of the instant bestseller Code Red: The Left, the Right, China, and the Race to Control AI, recently laid out the left’s plan to weaponize fears over AI job loss before the midterm elections:
The political playbook has three parts:
- Convince Americans that mass AI job loss is inevitable.
- Channel that fear and ennui into galvanizing support for Universal Basic Income (UBI) redistribution in the long-term.
- Co-opt populist concerns over AI data centers driving up electricity and water bills for everyday Americans in the short-term.
The strategy, years in the making, is backed by hundreds of millions of dollars of left-leaning Silicon Valley cash and a sprawling ecosystem of advocacy groups and nonprofits, which I document in my new book, Code Red: The Left, the Right, China, and the Race to Control AI (HarperCollins). The three-pronged approach to create fear and uncertainty is already kicking into high gear.
Read more at Forbes here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of AI, free speech, and online censorship.
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