Oracle Lays Off 30,000 Employees to Fund AI Investments

Oracle Corporation has cut approximately 30,000 jobs, redirecting the freed-up $10 billion toward building AI data centers. 

Oracle’s Chairman and CTO, Larry Ellison, claims that neural networks are now successfully writing code. However, terminated employees argue they were forced to train algorithms on their own workflows, effectively engineering their own replacements.

Main Grievances of Terminated Employees

Staff dismissed by the company’s leadership have raised the following concerns:

• Engineers were mandated to use semi-functional internal chatbots and transfer their expertise to AI models, with workweeks often reaching 80 hours.
• 62% of those laid off are over the age of 40. Many lost stock options worth up to $1 million that were less than 90 days away from vesting.
• Hundreds of specialists on H-1B visas have only 60 days to find a new job; otherwise, they face deportation.

Resistance and Corporate Reaction

More than 600 former employees have organized to demand higher severance packages (which are several times lower at Oracle than at Google or Meta), visa support, and extended health insurance for the critically ill, veterans, and pregnant women. Oracle has officially refused to negotiate with the advocacy group.

Former Oracle employees fear they are the first victims of an ongoing transformation. "The way these layoffs were handled shows that people are treated as just another asset," says a former Cerner employee. "Like data center equipment that can be written off if it stops yielding maximum profit."