Meta scaled back Project OT, a confidential Organization Transformation effort shaped at Mark Zuckerberg’s Hawaiian estate in January 2026 to become an “AI-native” company, including scenarios that could shrink some teams by as much as 60% across May and November waves. On the night of May 19 he shelved the November round; Meta still cut about 10% of staff—roughly 8,000 jobs—while moving about 7,000 people into AI-related teams, and later said it did not expect further company-wide layoffs that year. Internal results disappointed: code changes rose 220% year over year while user-facing features grew only 36%, major technical and security incidents climbed 40%, firefighting time rose 70%, and attackers exploited an AI customer-service bot to breach high-profile Instagram accounts, including a deactivated Obama White House account. Employee favorability fell from 74% to 55%, keystroke monitoring was later paused, and Meta framed the work as scenario planning and reassignment rather than a company-wide 60% purge. Second-quarter free cash flow dropped 91% year over year as capital-expenditure guidance of $130–145 billion for AI infrastructure loomed; LSEG analysts estimate outlays of at least $130 billion could absorb 2026 operating cash flow.