Meta is up 17-straight days, laid off 5% of the company and most still think jobs are safe

Shares of Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta are on an all-time heater right now. They erased a morning selloff and are up for the 17th consecutive day in an incredible run that’s even more incredible given turmoil in other Mag 7 stocks.

The market has come around to a few views:

• Zuckerberg will pivot the entire organization on a whim
• Cheaper AI is coming and that’s great news for Meta
• Open source will win, which is what they’ve been doing with Llama

And most importantly:

Meta has the clearest business case for AI as it can use models to generate text and images to improve advertising.

I’m totally on board with this thinking but what’s striking is that the company laid of 5% of employees on Monday. That was a ruthless move that I believe sets the stage for similar kinds of culls elsewhere in corporate America.

The job programmer/developer has quickly gone from high-demand to a surplus and that’s looking terminal. As companies continue to prove they can operate with leaner teams while still boosting productivity, the pressure will be on every executive team to do the same.

At the same time we have AI and robotics progress at a breakneck pace that will unlock more ways to cut staff. There’s no slowing it down either as JD Vance was in Europe today warning everyone not to even think about regulating US tech companies.

For all the focus on tariffs, politics and geopolitics at the moment, only real trend that matters is AI/robotics because it’s going to change everything.

This article was written by Adam Button at www.forexlive.com.