Jun. 4 at 2:33 AM
Amazon engineers publicly criticized the company for aggressively expanding AI infrastructure while continuing large-scale workforce reductions. Speaking at a Seattle City Council hearing, employees argued that Amazon’s planned
$200 billion in capital expenditures this year—largely directed toward AI and data centers—contrasts sharply with more than 30,000 corporate job cuts since October. The comments came as Seattle officials unanimously approved a one-year moratorium on new large-scale AI data centers to give the city time to develop regulations governing such projects.
The debate reflects growing tensions between the tech industry's massive AI investment cycle and efforts to reduce costs through layoffs. Amazon, along with Microsoft, Alphabet and Meta, is expected to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on AI infrastructure this year, even as companies streamline operations and automate more functions.
$AMZN $MSFT $GOOGL $META