Oracle Lays Off Thousands in Early Morning Cuts to Free Up $10B for AI Data Centers

Oracle launched large-scale layoffs on Tuesday. Thousands of employees received termination emails from 'Oracle Leadership' at 6 AM EST, with the same day being their last workday—no prior notice from supervisors or HR. They get one month's severance after signing exit documents, while unvested restricted stock units are immediately void. Affected roles include engineers, architects, and others, unrelated to performance.

The layoffs aim to free up funds for AI infrastructure. Analysts estimate cutting 20-30k jobs could generate $8-10B in incremental free cash flow. Oracle raised $50B via debt and equity in January for data center construction, and is part of the Stargate project (collaboration with OpenAI and SoftBank). Its backlog of unconfirmed contracts stands at $553B. Despite a 25% stock drop this year, shares rose ~5% the day after the news.