Overview

• The company will cut roughly 4% of its 228,000 employees in its latest round of job reductions.
• This marks Microsoft’s third wave of layoffs this year, following 6,000 job cuts in May and earlier workforce reductions in 2023.
• Microsoft has invested more than $13 billion in OpenAI since 2019 while bearing heavy spending pressures on AI operations.
• Tensions with OpenAI have escalated over governance and investment terms, prompting the startup to weigh an antitrust challenge.
• The restructuring is part of a broader strategy to streamline operations in the face of fierce global competition in AI.