It absolutely wasn’t for that. A lot of these tech giants have been printing money for decades with very little standing capital (aside from IP). They’ve now found themselves in a situation where they own rapidly deprecating infrastructure, large debts (more recently, initial investments didn’t require financing), and declining cash flows.

They’re firing people to offset loss of liquidity and to finish off any Covid “overhiring” (fuck you). I’m sure some managers are also fully bought into the AI pipe dream as well, but I doubt it’s the real driving force

I wouldn't say that for certain. It could have been a manipulation tactic to make the company look like their AI is doing well at increasing efficiency, but in reality it is just cutting payroll to counteract the huge AI expenses which are not paying off