Microsoft offers a voluntary exit to about 60,000 employees while AI spending climbs

About one Microsoft employee in four opened an email on Monday offering money to leave.

Chief People Officer Amy Coleman announced the Voluntary Exit Offer in a memo to staff. "The Voluntary Exit Offer reflects an important part of how we're evolving our approach to change: creating greater flexibility and, where possible, more ways for employees to shape their next chapter," she wrote. Coleman said the offer builds on the company's Voluntary Retirement Program from April. A person familiar with the plan told CNBC that about 60,000 employees qualify. Microsoft confirmed the scale of the pool to several outlets. The terms match the company's standard severance: base pay tied to level and years of service, a period of continued stock vesting, health coverage for a fixed time and career planning help. The company has set no target for how many people it expects to accept, according to the person briefed on the plan.

The offer does not reach every desk. Reuters reported that participating units include the AI experiences group, Copilot, finance, human resources, Xbox and Windows, and that marketing, the commercial business and security stay out. Bloomberg reported that data center staff are also excluded, and CNBC reported that some marketing, sales and engineering teams chose not to take part. Eligible workers sit at level 70 and below on Microsoft's internal scale, which reaches some vice president titles and stops below the corporate vice president rank.

The reason sits on the spending side of the ledger. Microsoft plans capital spending of about 175 billion dollars this year, most of it on AI data centers and chips, and its free cash flow fell 23 percent from a year earlier in the second quarter as the building bill rose. This is the company's third workforce move of the year. The April retirement offer reached about 8,750 American employees and drew acceptance from roughly 30 percent of them. In July the company cut 4,800 jobs outright, about 2.1 percent of the workforce. Headcount stood at 228,000 at the end of 2025 and 223,000 at the end of June.

Nobody has been fired by Monday's offer. Each eligible employee chooses, and the company says it may try to keep key people who apply. Microsoft reports quarterly earnings on Wednesday, and the results will show investors the AI bill and the payroll side by side. How many of the 60,000 take the money by early December decides whether this stays a voluntary thinning or becomes the first step toward cuts the company orders itself.