Biden tech bubble? Thousands laid off by Big Tech as president brags of 'booming economy'

Big Tech was a big backer of Joe Biden for president, but now the industry is feeling the impact of his economic policies, as giants like Meta and Microsoft have laid off thousands of employees in recent weeks.

The wave of terminations is undercutting the president's optimistic message about the economy.

"My first two years in office were the two strongest years for job growth on record," Biden said in a recent statement according to CNBC. "We still have more work to do, but we're clearly moving in the right direction, and there's more breathing room in store for American workers and families."

Microsoft is the latest Big Tech titan to shed jobs, disclosing in a filing this week that it is laying off 10,000 employees, nearly 5% of its workforce, in what it calls a "response to macroeconomic conditions and changing customer priorities."

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said during the World Economic Forum in Switzerland prior to the layoffs that the company was suffering from the weak global economy. 

"No one can defy gravity, and gravity here is inflation-adjusted economic growth," Nadella told WEF founder Klaus Schwab in a livestream.

In November 2022, Meta, previously called Facebook, laid off 11,000 jobs. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a letter to employees that the company would be cut down by 13%.

"I've decided to reduce the size of our team by about 13% and let more than 11,000 of our talented employees go," Zuckerberg wrote in the letter. "We are also taking a number of additional steps to become a leaner and more efficient company by cutting discretionary spending and extending our hiring freeze through Q1." 

When billionaire Elon Musk took over the social media platform Twitter, he said that the company was losing more than $4 million per day and therefore had to lay off some employees. Roughly, 3,700 were cut. 

"Regarding Twitter's reduction in force, unfortunately there is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day," Musk wrote in a tweet back in November. "Everyone exited was offered 3 months of severance, which is 50% more than legally required."

It is estimated that multiple tech companies, including Amazon and Coinbase, have laid off more than 60,000 employees over the last year combined, according to CNBC.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong cited the layoff of 950 employees as a result of the economic climate. 

"This is the first time we've seen a crypto cycle coincide with a broader economic downturn," Armstrong wrote in a letter to Coinbase employees.

"While it is always painful to part ways with our fellow colleagues, there was no way to reduce our expenses significantly enough, without considering changes to headcount," the letter continued. 

Former Assistant Treasury Secretary Monica Crowley said Wednesday that these tech companies have not been exempt from the hardships of the current economy.

"I think tech is sort of a leading indicator of what may in fact happen in the broader economy going forward this year," Crowley said on the "Just the News, No Noise" TV show. "Bank of America and Wells Fargo are saying that we're looking at a recession this year. That seems to be the consensus. The question is, how deep and how protracted will this recession be?"