AUSTIN, Texas, March 31, 2026, 13:09 CDT
Oracle started slashing jobs on Tuesday, telling certain staff via internal emails that their time at the company had ended as it looked to slash expenses and ramp up AI infrastructure spending. CNBC, quoting two sources familiar with the situation, reported thousands would be impacted. Oracle would not respond to requests for comment.
This matters right now because Oracle is pouring cash into one of the largest AI infrastructure pushes in the sector. Earlier this month, the company stuck with its $50 billion fiscal 2026 capex plan for data centers and equipment. Remaining performance obligations — revenue under contract but not yet recognized — soared 325% to $553 billion, as Oracle works to narrow the gap with Amazon and Microsoft in the cloud infrastructure race.
Oracle said back in February it was targeting $45 billion to $50 billion in 2026 funding, aiming to ramp up cloud capacity for customers like OpenAI, Meta, Nvidia, and xAI. By March 10, the company had already secured $30 billion, tapping bonds and mandatory convertible preferred stock, but didn’t budge on its $50 billion expansion plan.
The push has put a dent in cash generation. By the end of February, Oracle’s trailing four-quarter free cash flow was deep in the red at negative $24.7 billion. Then, a March filing revealed the fiscal 2026 restructuring plan could run up to $2.1 billion—mostly covering severance and related costs.
Some employees at Business Insider said they got emails early Tuesday, notifying them that their jobs were being cut “as part of a broader organizational change.” The email made it clear: their last day was the same day it landed in their inbox. Workers were instructed to give a personal address so severance and other separation documents could be sent out. Business Insider
Investors bet that the planned cuts might take some of the weight off. Oracle shares climbed 4.7% to $145.28 by midday Tuesday in the U.S. Still, the stock is off roughly 29% year-to-date.
During the March 10 earnings call, Executive Chairman Larry Ellison pushed back against talk of a “SaaS apocalypse,” insisting that the slowdown in subscription software demand wasn’t hitting Oracle. He said Oracle has been deploying AI coding tools to speed up industry software development with leaner teams. Co-CEO Clay Magouyrk pointed to improving cloud margins, highlighting that running higher-margin database services on top of AI chip rentals would boost profitability. For Jacob Bourne, analyst at eMarketer, the quarter shaped up as a “stress test result” for AI’s prospects. Reuters
Still, those risks haven’t disappeared. Matt Britzman at Hargreaves Lansdown pointed out that questions around Oracle’s financing just “not going away anytime soon.” Over at Morgan Stanley, analysts noted investors are holding out for more concrete evidence—specifically, that leasing out graphics chips and the associated cloud infrastructure will end up boosting both earnings and free cash flow. Reuters
These layoffs are part of a broader tech trend. Over 70 tech firms have slashed roughly 40,480 jobs in 2026 to date, and Meta just let go of several hundred people last week, with budgets still shifting toward AI.
Oracle hasn’t specified the number of jobs on the chopping block, nor has it said which regions will face the brunt of the cuts. As of May 2025, the company reported a global workforce of roughly 162,000 full-time employees. Details around the scale of Tuesday’s layoffs are still unknown.
