Axing jobs to fund GPUs: Meta job cuts could see surge in low paid ghost workers

Ah, Meta's 'year of efficiency' — which somehow never seems to reduce Mark Zuckerberg's ability to burn money on AI moonshots. Business Insider and Freelance Informer now report that as Meta axes thousands of roles to fund GPU purchases, CEO Zuckerberg is simultaneously offering packages worth **$1.5 billion for single elite AI engineers** — that's roughly $1.5 billion per brain fished out of another LA pool supposedly entering the well-worn era. You read that correctly: a payment larger than the annual GDP of a small nation to stop one person from working for a competitor. Back in the real world, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) found that US data workers powering these same models earn a median of — drumroll — **$15 an hour**. That's less than the cost. We previously tracked Meta's slow-swinging axe thinning middle management, but once that workforce departs through the 'same door' referenced in a CWA criticism of contracts at that cash-flush behemoth, many 'jobs' — namely those describing people of modest background — are on time. So you get the trade Mark Z makes. Simple arithmetic! We can't hope to find that's $15 basic — data labelling economy wages — and that sure.