Scale AI fires 14% employees after Meta's mega investment

17 Jul 2025, 11:50 AM

The restructuring will make Scale AI more nimble; and allow it to serve the customers better, the company's interim CEO Jason Droege wrote to employees.

Team Head&Tale

Scale AI is laying off 14% (close to 200 employees) of its staff after Meta invested $14.3 billion to pick 49% stake in the US-based artificial intelligence firm and hired its CEO Alexandr Wang.


Jason Droege, who became interim CEO after the departure of founder Wang, told employees in an email that the company ramped up its GenAI capacity "too quickly" over the past year and created too many layers of "excessive bureaucracy". 

Droege further added that these changes will make Scale AI more nimble; and allow it to serve the customers better.

He, however, noted that Scale AI will "significantly increase headcount" across its application business units in the second half of the year, including within its enterprise, public sector and international public sector divisions, Bloomberg reported.

Prior to the layoffs, Scale AI employed 1,400 people globally.

Meta's "significant" investment in data labeling company Scale AI last month sent quite a jitter across the larger tech industry.

A string of reports soon emerged that Meta's rivals including Google, OpenAI and Elon Musk's xAI are severing ties with Scale AI. It gave the impression that the Mark Zuckerberg-led company had struck gold and with Scale AI's co-founder Alexandr Wang joining Meta's superintelligence unit a void of sorts would be left in the data labeling industry for Meta's rivals at least.