Microsoft is back as the world's most valuable company after being temporarily overtaken by NVIDIA. With it towering above and valued at over $3 trillion, many would see this as the best time to add staff. But the opposite is true with Microsoft laying off up to 6,000 more employees according to a Bloomberg report.
All of the layoffs are sales staff with the announcement likely to be made as early as July. Microsoft has doubled its investment in artificial intelligence (AI) over the past two years with $80 billion to be spent this year on expanding data center capabilities.
Microsoft has not given any official statement on the report and there is speculation that these employees are being laid off because their jobs could be replaced by AI. This week Amazon CEO Andy Jassy made a controversial statement that many of the company's employees will be laid off because AI is more efficient at performing tasks than humans.