Oracle, the American enterprise software and cloud giant chaired by billionaire Larry Ellison, is preparing to cut thousands of jobs across its divisions—and the culprit is not a business slowdown, but the staggering cost of chasing the artificial intelligence boom.
According to an exclusive report by Bloomberg News published on Thursday, the layoffs could begin as early as this month and will affect multiple departments across the company.
Notably, some of the cuts will specifically target job categories that Oracle itself expects to become redundant as AI takes over those functions, a sign that the technology companies are now restructuring their own workforces in the very name of the technology they are investing in.
The backdrop is Oracle's dramatic transformation over the past year. Long considered a second-tier player in the cloud market, Oracle has rapidly emerged as a serious contender for AI infrastructure, powered in part by its high-profile $300 billion deal with OpenAI.
But that ambition comes at a price. In December, the company revised its capital expenditure forecast for fiscal year 2026 upward by $15 billion, on top of the already ambitious $35 billion estimate it had given earlier.
In February, Oracle said it plans to raise between $45 billion and $50 billion through debt and equity sales in 2026 to fund the expansion.
Wall Street analysts project Oracle's cash flow will remain negative for years before the AI spending begins to pay off, a turning point they currently place around 2030.
Bloomberg further reported that Oracle this week internally announced a review of open job listings in its cloud division, effectively freezing or slowing new hiring. Planning for the cuts is still active, and the final scope could change, Bloomberg noted, citing people familiar with the matter. Oracle declined to comment. The company had approximately 162,000 full-time employees globally as of May 31, 2025.
