Meta Slashes Stock Comp Again, Redirecting Cash Toward AI
Meta cuts equity rewards by ~5% for most employees, following a ~10% reduction in 2025, to fund massive AI investments.
Meta is trimming stock option payouts for the second year running. Most staffers — tens of thousands of them — will see roughly 5% less in annual equity compensation this cycle.
That follows an even steeper cut of around 10% in 2025. The pattern is clear: Mark Zuckerberg is squeezing employee comp to bankroll the company's enormous AI ambitions.
Stock-based compensation is the bread and butter of Big Tech pay packages. Repeated cuts hit morale hard, especially when they compound year over year. A worker who got hit with the 2025 reduction is now looking at roughly 15% less equity than two years ago.
The message from Zuckerberg is blunt — AI spending is the priority, and the budget has to come from somewhere. Right now, that somewhere is employee wallets.