Oracle is planning a mass layoff and might fire around 30,000 employees as it scrambles to manage a worsening cash crunch from its AI data centre, Bloomberg reported. The AI data centre is Oracle’s ambitious and highly expensive project. Layoffs can begin this month. It will also mark the company’s largest-ever restructuring. In the September filing, Oracle disclosed the plan could cost up to $1.6 billion in the current fiscal year, including severance payouts. This is significantly higher than any previous round of cuts the company made. Employees from multiple business units will be laid off and will be replaced by AI, Times of India reported. The company has frozen or slowed the hiring in its cloud division. It also internally announced a review of the open job listings this week.
Larry Ellison’s ambitious $300 billion push into artificial intelligence with OpenAI is putting heavy financial pressure on Oracle Corporation, drawing increasing attention from Wall Street. The strategy is part of Ellison’s effort to transform Oracle from a traditional database software firm into a major AI cloud competitor to Amazon and Microsoft. According to TD Cowen, the partnership could demand nearly $156 billion in capital expenditure and around three million GPUs. To support these projects, Oracle has already taken on $58 billion in fresh debt within two months, including $38 billion for data centres in Texas and Wisconsin and another $20 billion for a campus in New Mexico.
The aggressive spending spree has pushed Oracle’s total debt beyond $100 billion. Analysts on Wall Street expect the company’s free cash flow to turn negative for the next several years, with returns from these massive investments unlikely to appear until around 2030. Last month, Oracle announced plans to raise as much as $50 billion this year through a mix of debt and equity offerings. The market reaction has been severe. After surging 61% in 2024 and another 20% last year, Oracle’s shares have dropped 54% from their September 2025 peak, erasing roughly $463 billion in market value. The decline continued on Thursday when the stock fell up to 1.5% following a report by Bloomberg.
The financial strain tied to AI investments is affecting the broader tech sector as well. Amazon eliminated 16,000 jobs in January, just months after cutting 14,000 positions in October. Meanwhile, Microsoft laid off around 15,000 employees last year while ramping up its own data-centre expansion. Salesforce has also reduced thousands of roles over the past year. Fintech firm Block Inc. recently cut about 3,500 jobs—roughly half its workforce—with co-founder Jack Dorsey attributing the move to AI-driven efficiency improvements.
TD Cowen had previously warned that Oracle itself could consider layoffs ranging between 20,000 and 30,000 employees, potentially freeing up $8 billion to $10 billion in cash flow. At the same time, several US banks have reportedly become cautious about financing Oracle-linked data centre projects, with interest premiums on the company’s debt nearly doubling since September. Reports also suggest Oracle is asking new clients to pay up to 40% of contract values in advance. The company is additionally exploring a potential sale of Cerner—the healthcare technology firm it purchased for $28.3 billion in 2022—highlighting how strongly its focus has shifted toward building AI infrastructure. Oracle is set to announce its fiscal third-quarter earnings on March 10.