Meta just told employees their stock awards are getting smaller. Again. For the second consecutive year, the company is reducing equity grants, even as it pours $115-135 billion into AI infrastructure.
According to the Financial Times, the cuts come as Meta's free cash flow is expected to plummet roughly 90% due to massive AI spending. The message to employees is clear: we're betting big on AI, and you're paying for it.
Stock compensation is a significant part of tech worker pay, especially at Meta, where equity can make up 40-50% of total compensation for senior engineers. Cutting those grants two years running isn't just a symbolic gesture. It's a real pay cut for employees who are being asked to deliver the AI products that justify the company's historic capital expenditure.
The irony is rich. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly called 2026 "the year of efficiency." But apparently that efficiency doesn't extend to questioning whether the company needs to spend more than Belgium's GDP on AI data centers. Instead, efficiency means employees get less while the company bets their compensation on whether enterprise customers will pay for AI features.
This is the reality of the AI boom: shareholders and executives believe in the long-term vision enough to commit staggering capital. But when it comes time to share the risk, employees are the ones taking the haircut.
Meta stock is up over the past year, which softens the blow somewhat. But stock grants are forward-looking compensation. Cutting them sends a signal about what the company thinks the next few years will look like. And that signal isn't particularly bullish for anyone whose paycheck says "Meta" on it.
