Oracle has begun notifying its workforce about plans to eliminate thousands of jobs, as confirmed by CNBC, amid a sharp decline in its stock value linked to significant financial commitments for developing AI infrastructure.
Even though Oracle’s primary business faces market anxiety concerning competitive threats from generative artificial intelligence technologies, the firm is also under scrutiny from shareholders regarding its escalating debt for AI projects and diminishing cash reserves.
Business Insider covered the recent layoffs earlier this Tuesday. CNBC corroborated the layoffs with two sources who chose to remain anonymous as the news has not been made officially public.
Oracle, which had a workforce of 162,000 as of May 2025, did not provide any comments. The firm’s stock has decreased by 25% this year, more than all of technology’s major companies.
Oracle continues to offer its main database product for managing and retrieving corporate data. Recently, along with cloud competitors like Amazon, the firm has significantly increased capital spending to create data center facilities capable of supporting AI operations. However, Oracle is smaller than its cloud competitors.
Oracle has been relying on the debt market to support its expansion. In January, Oracle revealed intentions to secure $50 billion through debt and equity financing. During the latest earnings call, executives stated there were no further intentions to increase debt in 2026.
In September, Oracle revealed that its outstanding performance obligations, a metric for contracted revenue awaiting recognition, soared 359% to $455 billion following a deal with OpenAI valued at over $300 billion. Shortly after, Oracle appointed executives Mike Sicilia and Clay Magouyrk to succeed Safra Catz as CEO.
Eliminating 20,000 to 30,000 positions might create an additional $8 billion to $10 billion in free cash flow, analysts at TD Cowen noted in a report from January.
Executives have indicated that the returns from their AI investments will materialize over time.
“The requirement for AI infrastructure, both GPU and CPU, continues to surpass supply,” Magouyrk mentioned during an earnings call this month. “This is clearly reflected in our $553 billion in remaining performance obligations.”
WATCH: Oracle laying off ‘thousands’ of employees, sources say
