They are erasing humans from tech. The layoffs in 2025 are not a correction or a market blip. They are a purge. Executives stopped pretending this is about efficiency. Algorithms are taking over, and the speed is staggering. By mid-September, over 166,000 workers vanished across 400 tech companies. Each round of cuts names AI as the reason. If this keeps up, 235,000 people will lose jobs by year-end. That averages 645 workers every single day.
“AI is coming for your jobs. Heck, it’s coming for my job too. This is a wake-up call.” — Fiverr CEO Micha Kaufman after laying off 250 employees to restructure as an ‘AI-first company’ https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/ai-first-push-leads-to-250-layoffs-at-fiverr/ar-AA1MOycu
Companies are quietly cutting roles while saying machines can do the work better. They spend billions on AI engineering, research, and infrastructure, and human labor disappears. Microsoft cut more than 15,000 roles this year, including 9,000 in gaming and cloud. IBM, Google, Intel, Oracle, Salesforce, and xAI fired entire departments. HR, customer support, data annotation, middle management—they eliminated people whose work machines could now handle. Google outsourced its Gemini AI rating team, then fired 200 specialists even as protests erupted. Elon Musk’s xAI wiped out 500 data tutors in a single week, declaring generalist roles obsolete.
“We no longer need most generalist AI tutor positions, and your employment with xAI will conclude.” — Internal email obtained by Business Insider https://www.gadgets360.com/ai/features/layoff-2025-july-september-google-xai-microsoft-fiverr-salesforce-oracle-cisco-rivian-9299455
Executives still insist the threat is imaginary. Palantir CEO Alex Karp told FORTUNE that “U.S. labor workers won’t lose their jobs to AI.” Meanwhile, Palantir quietly automated dozens of roles. His words clash violently with reality.
Palantir, $PLTR, CEO Alex Karp says U.S. labor workers won’t lose their jobs to AI, per FORTUNE
— unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) September 18, 2025
This is deeper than unemployment. This is obsolescence. These roles are not temporary. They are foundational. Machines replace the people who once kept systems running. Companies do not need onboarding specialists, technical writers, or customer service reps anymore. They need data, infrastructure, and silence.
If this pace continues, over 500,000 tech workers will lose their jobs by the end of 2026. The companies will call it innovation. The government will call it progress. For the workers it will feel like exile. In this AI-first economy, relevance is no longer earned. It is programmed.
