[Zuckerberg: Sales Slowdown Blamed on War, Layoffs Due to AI Costs] Reported by Golden Finance, on May 1, according to The Wall Street Journal, Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg provided new details about the company's aggressive AI plans during an all-hands meeting on Thursday and addressed market concerns over its first-quarter performance. Zuckerberg attributed Meta's 8% stock drop to investor worries about the upward revision of its expected capital expenditures and the company's forecast of slower growth in the second quarter. Zuckerberg stated that Meta's advertising business experienced a 'trajectory shift' after the U.S. went to war with Iran at the end of February. He said, 'If oil prices rise, consumers will spend more money on oil and gasoline, and spending on non-essential discretionary items will decrease. Advertising is typically targeted at these types of goods.' Zuckerberg linked the company's layoff plans next month to the need for increased investment in data centers and other AI infrastructure. He explained, 'The company essentially has two cost centers. One is computing and infrastructure, and the other is personnel. If we allocate more funds to one area to serve our community, it means we have less capital to allocate to the other area. So this means we do need to moderately reduce the company's scale.'