Microsoft offers about 60,000 staff buyouts amid $170 billion AI spending plan

Microsoft is offering voluntary severance packages to about 60,000 employees, roughly a quarter of its workforce, according to The Decoder. The same company plans to spend about $170 billion on AI infrastructure this year, per CFO Amy Hood.

The Wall Street Journal reported that "it was the largest voluntary buyout offer in its history, extended to about one quarter of its staff." Big numbers on both sides of the ledger, and the ledger is the story.

Who is in the room, and who is not

The Voluntary Exit Offer, or VEO, covers eligible employees in the U.S., Canada, India and the UK at vice president level or below (level 70 and below). Employees have until early December to decide, and those who accept leave at the end of the year, December 31, according to Computerworld.

The guest list is the interesting part. Citing Reuters, Computerworld reports that participating teams include AI experiences, Copilot, Xbox, and Windows + Devices. Marketing, sales, commercial business, security and some data center staff are excluded. Bloomberg reported a similar split: data centers, cybersecurity, quantum computing, sales and marketing are out, while Xbox, Windows, Copilot and finance are eligible.

The Decoder frames this as shielding AI-critical teams. Computerworld points out that people building Copilot and AI products are among those who can take the exit. Both can be true: the protected groups are the ones that run the machines and sell the product, and the eligible groups include some that build it. Semafor's read is that the list shows which tech jobs matter, and it notes that AI was responsible for 30% of code written at Microsoft as of a year and a half ago.

HR chief Amy Coleman, in an internal memo, called the packages "another way to adapt their workforce to changing needs." She also wrote that the offer gives eligible employees who may be considering a future outside the company "a new choice to make that transition now with support." Participation varies across organizations by "priorities, customer commitments and workforce needs." The memo does not state how many people are eligible. On the official blog she added: "The Voluntary Exit Offer is new for us. We’ll learn from it."

What the package looks like

Business Insider reports that U.S. buyouts follow Microsoft's standard severance offers, individualized by level, tenure and location. Microsoft's internal levels run from 59 (entry) to 70 (vice president).

• Levels 64 and below: one week of base pay per six months of service.
• Levels 65 to 67: two weeks of base pay per six months of service.
• Base pay is capped at 39 weeks for levels 67 and below. Level 68 gets 12 months of salary.
• Regular stock vesting continues for 6 or 12 months for levels 67 and below, depending on tenure, along with health insurance.

Terms for Canada, India and the UK, and for levels 69 and 70, are not in the coverage reviewed here.

The money on both sides of the ledger

Microsoft spent $41 billion on capital expenditures in the quarter ending June 30 and guided to more than $50 billion for the September quarter, per Computerworld. Hood says full-year AI infrastructure spending is about $170 billion, slightly down from an original $175 billion plan. According to CNBC, Microsoft is ramping up data center investments to supply cloud services to OpenAI, Anthropic and other firms.

The headcount side is shrinking. Microsoft reported about 223,000 full-time employees as of June 30, 2026, down from 228,000 a year earlier, according to its SEC annual report. On the April 29 earnings call Hood said, "We expect headcount will decrease year-over-year" in fiscal 2027. CEO Satya Nadella said that month that IT budgets would be reshaped by business outcomes and "reallocation from other line items on the income statement, like OpEx."

This is the second exit program of the year. An earlier voluntary retirement program reached about 7% of the U.S. workforce, about 8,750 people, and Microsoft cut 4,800 jobs in July. (The Decoder dates the earlier buyouts to May, while Computerworld and Business Insider place the rollout in April.) Hood said in April that program would carry roughly $900 million in one-time costs, then expenses came in lower than expected, she noted in July.

The reporting gives no cost for this one. Nor does it say how many of the 60,000 will say yes.

What to watch

Start with the early December decision window and the December 31 departures. Acceptance figures will show how many eligible employees take the offer; a team-level breakdown would show where the departures land. A Microsoft spokesperson told Business Insider there are no plans for another buyout at this time. Separately, a spokesperson told The Decoder that Microsoft wants employees committed to tackling its toughest problems.

Then watch the next earnings call for the one-time charge, and for how fast the capex figure moves relative to headcount. Greyhound Research chief analyst Sanchit Vir Gogia cautioned against treating Microsoft's moves as a template: "Workforce savings earn credibility through the capability that remains."

Spending $170 billion on the future while inviting a quarter of the staff to leave for theirs is a very Microsoft kind of confidence. I find it magnificent. Whether those who stay agree is a question for January.