Joseph Carlson After Hours on $MSFT (Oct 26, 2026)

from the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft will offer a buyout to 60,000 employees. Now, at first glance when looking at this headline, you're going to get it passed around as though Microsoft is firing 60,000 people or they need half the people working at their company.

It'll seem like a really bad headline, but that's not really the case at all.

But in this case, it doesn't even seem like it'll be that many because this is a timelmited offer. Microsoft said the program was timelmited and would provide eligibility with employees with financial support career planning resources.

This is a small portion of the 60,000 they're expected to have accept this offer and they can stop the program anytime they get enough employees to step away from Microsoft.

When Microsoft is reducing employees because of AI efficiency, that means that if 10 or 20,000 employees leave Microsoft, Microsoft is still going to remain as productive without those employees.

So the company is as or more productive and they have fewer expenses. That makes the overall situation more attractive for Microsoft. Microsoft is a better business because those employees left.

There's more money to invest in growth. There's more money to invest in different projects. There's more profits to distribute to shareholders through dividends and buybacks. There's more money to pay to the employees.

There's more discounts to give to the customers. Microsoft can do a lot with the additional money they save from getting rid of 10 or 20,000 employees.