Companies

Microsoft offers voluntary exits to 60,000 staff as AI restructuring continues

Microsoft offered voluntary exits to 60,000 staff; DeepSeek expanded hiring and Alibaba won a U.S. court ruling.

Story highlights

On Oct. 27 Beijing time, Microsoft offered voluntary departure packages to about 60,000 employees, roughly 27% of its global workforce, as the company steps up cost cuts tied to artificial intelligence, according to 21st Century Business Herald. Microsoft had about 223,000 full-time employees at the end of June. The program covers eligible employees at grade 70 and below in participating departments in the United States, Canada, India and Britain, including senior managers. Eligible staff must decide by early December and leave by the end of the year. Compensation is similar to Microsoft's standard layoff package: at least 60 days of base salary, with most employees also receiving up to 39 weeks of base pay depending on grade and tenure. Microsoft cut 4,800 roles in July; in April it introduced its first voluntary departure package, open to about 7% of U.S. employees, after an earlier voluntary retirement program for about 9,000 employees who met age and tenure conditions.

AI News Feed · 2026-10-28 13:16

DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng entered the Hurun China Rich List for the first time on Oct. 27 with 280 billion yuan, ranking seventh, as the AI company accelerates hiring, Phoenix Tech reported. People close to DeepSeek said the company is planning a new growth route for investors that includes a major expansion of its team. DeepSeek's offices are mainly in Beijing and Hangzhou; Liang has long rented an apartment in Beijing with simple furnishings. The company said in June that every department should at least double, and in September it posted more than 100 engineering roles. Online reports put a new DeepSeek funding round at about 100 billion yuan. DeepSeek is registered in Hangzhou, but Beijing houses its core algorithm team.

Apple said on Oct. 27 that users who encounter display problems with the iPhone Duo should contact AppleCare for replacement. Apple said initial response to the first batch was very positive and it had noticed very few inner-screen issues. Earlier reports said screen failures were frequent and widely speculated to stem from the hinge. A Foxconn employee told media that Apple had lowered certain yield quality-check standards to secure supply amid tight capacity. Apple customer service denied the claim, and a person close to the iPhone Duo supply chain told media that Apple had not taken measures such as lowering yield quality-check standards.

Douyin Group Vice President Li Liang on Oct. 27 rejected the view that "China's internet has entered ByteDance time," calling it extremely imprecise and "pure nonsense." He said no company has become "China internet's xx time"; instant messaging is relatively stable because of relationship chains, while short dramas and short videos are fully competitive and no company can hold first place for long. He said Tencent's short-drama and short-video growth far exceeded that of Douyin and Hongguo. Douyin also denied an online claim that Hongguo short dramas generated 40 billion yuan in annual revenue, saying the cited "institutional data" and "expert estimates" were not official.

Alibaba won an initial U.S. court ruling against the Defense Department. A federal judge in San Jose, California, ordered the Trump administration on Monday to stop enforcing a ban that barred the Pentagon from doing business with any company that conducts lobbying for Alibaba, foreign media reported. The Defense Department updated its Chinese military companies list on June 8 to include Alibaba, Baidu and BYD. Alibaba said the listing was a mistake and had no basis, and later sued the department to remove it from the list.

The orange tube hanging from Tencent's Penguin Island headquarters in Shenzhen, which drew online speculation, is a blower with a retractable ventilation duct used for emergency indoor ventilation, according to photos posted online. The device can exhaust hot air and bring in fresh air. Tencent's new campus has total investment of 31.9 billion yuan and more than 3 million square meters of floor area, with nearly 30,000 employees moved in as of October.

Xiaohongshu said it is continuing to check and remove Mbappe-related material after the Real Madrid forward made remarks that angered Chinese users. The platform said its content cooperation with Mbappe ended on Dec. 31, 2024, and his account has been muted and barred from new followers; it had more than 1.05 million followers. Dongpeng Beverage, Mengniu, Milkground and other brands announced contract terminations, and media reported that brands including Nike, Dior and Hublot had removed Mbappe content from official Weibo accounts. Mbappe apologized in Chinese, English and French, saying the remarks were not his intention.

OpenAI released GPT-6.1 Terra and cut the new model's price by half, according to the report.

Editor's Summary

Microsoft's voluntary departure plan covers about 27% of its workforce and follows earlier layoffs, while DeepSeek is expanding and Alibaba won a U.S. court reprieve from a Pentagon-related ban. Apple said it will replace affected iPhone Duo screens and denied lowering quality checks.