'Axe Everybody, Rehire Where There's Pain': Ex-Meta Employee Rejects Job Offer, Calls Layoff Culture 'Unbelievably Toxic'

Zach Wilson, a former Facebook growth analytics engineer and founder of DataExpert.io, said Meta Platforms contacted him for a principal-level role the same week it began cutting 8,000 jobs. His LinkedIn post detailing the contradiction has drawn more than 7,300 reactions, 289 comments and 134 reposts, and the same post on X has drawn more than 1 million impressions.

'I'm sure there was at least 1 out of those 8,000 people who got let go who would've been a good fit for the role they wanted to hire me for,' Wilson wrote. 'A few of my staff engineer friends got let go so I know this is true.'

Rather than retain existing talent, he said, Meta chose a cruder approach. 'Instead they: axe everybody, treat them like a cost, rehire where there's pain.'

Wilson reserved his sharpest criticism for what he described as a broken social contract. 'How do these big tech companies expect people to put their blood, sweat and tears into work while also saying, yeah we'll cut you at any moment,' he wrote. 'The culture around AI and layoffs has gotten unbelievably toxic.'

Record Profits, Mass Layoffs

The timing stings. Meta posted $56.31 billion (£44.5 billion) in revenue and $26.8 billion (£21.2 billion) in net income for the first quarter of 2026, per its earnings filing on 29 April. Revenue climbed 33% year on year.

Despite those results, Meta began eliminating roughly 8,000 roles on 20 May — about 10% of its global workforce, Business Today noted. Employees in Singapore received termination emails at 4 a.m. local time. Staff elsewhere were told to work from home while awaiting their own notifications.

The cuts are tied directly to Meta's AI pivot. Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg wrote in an internal memo that 'AI is the most consequential technology of our lifetimes,' and the company has guided 2026 capital expenditure to between $125 billion and $145 billion (£99 billion to £115 billion), the bulk of it earmarked for data centres and model training.

'Squid Game' Culture

Wilson is far from alone.

Jeremy Bernier, a software engineer let go in the same round, wrote on X that Meta was 'easily the most toxic company I've worked for.' He likened the internal culture to a survival drama. 'There's a reason the Chinese call it Squid Game. Others refer to it as Hunger Games or Lord of the Flies. I think they're all accurate,' Bernier wrote, as The News International documented.

He pointed to Meta's PSC ranking system as a driver. 'The only mission bonding the company together is individual self-preservation,' he said. 'Save your own ass to survive for another stock vesting, and throw someone else under the bus if you need to.'

Product designer Asha Raval told her Instagram followers she felt 'so happy and free' after leaving. 'No amount of equity, stocks, cash, accolades can fix the feeling of your soul slowly dying,' she said, as covered by The San Francisco Standard.

Former employee Adel Wu described scenes from earlier rounds in a viral X post, recalling workers stuffing bags with free office snacks and chargers the night before cuts landed. 'My friends still there are either just waiting hoping to get laid off or extremely anxious because the job is their lifeline,' Wu wrote.

A Wider Reckoning Across the Sector

Meta's actions sit within a brutal pattern. As of 24 May, technology companies worldwide had shed 142,985 jobs across 339 separate events in 2026, according to layoff tracker TrueUp. That pace — roughly 993 roles per day — is set to outstrip the 245,000 total for all of 2025.

Meta alone has eliminated more than 33,000 positions since late 2022. This latest round is the company's fourth this year.

Wilson's question lingers. 'Why do companies expect us to be loyal to them if they don't even try to retain us when they have hundreds of billions of dollars?'