[Nearly 140,000 Layoffs by U.S. Tech Giants This Year, $725 Billion AI Capital Expenditure by the Big Four] BlockBeats News, July 25: According to data compiled by the *Financial Times* in collaboration with Challenger, Gray and Christmas, layoffs in the U.S. tech industry since 2026 account for more than one-third of all announced layoffs nationwide. Amazon, Oracle, Meta, and Microsoft alone have laid off nearly 50,000 employees, approximately 6% of their total workforce. In stark contrast, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, and Microsoft are expected to invest as much as $725 billion this year in AI infrastructure such as data centers. Oracle, after layoffs in March, has reduced its workforce by 21,000 employees this year and was downgraded by S&P this month due to weak cash flow and uncertainty surrounding AI returns. Microsoft cut 4,800 positions this month, primarily in its Xbox gaming division, effectively resetting its $75 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard from three years ago. The narrative of "AI causing layoffs" has been met with skepticism in academic circles. Enrico Moretti, an economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, pointed out that AI-related layoffs are more often an excuse for management to correct over-hiring during the pandemic. "Claiming that AI brings efficiency improvements is easier than admitting they hired too many people in the first place," he said. Market pricing also signals skepticism. Within 30 trading days of announcing layoffs, companies attributing layoffs to AI underperformed the Nasdaq by nearly 10%, while companies citing other reasons for layoffs lagged by only about 4%. Both Amazon and Microsoft have explicitly stated that the promotion of AI technologies is not the decisive factor behind their layoffs. In contrast to the contraction of non-core businesses by tech giants, AI-native startups like Anthropic and OpenAI are rapidly expanding their workforce. Employment in the AI sector is growing quickly, with "everything else non-core being cut back."