Uber is cutting 3,300 jobs, roughly 10% of its workforce, in its largest round of layoffs since the pandemic-era cuts of 2020. The company is framing the move not as a response to financial distress but as a redirection of spending toward its autonomous-vehicle push, even as its core ride-hailing and delivery business keeps growing at a double-digit pace.
The restructuring will cut management layers by 20% and shrink the number of small "micro-teams" by half, according to Fortune's reporting on the plan, with delivery operations across restaurants, retail and direct verticals being consolidated. Chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi told staff the change was about structure, not performance.
This is about how we're organized and what we're prioritizing, not about anyone's contributions to Uber.
Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber CEO
Khosrowshahi said the company had "grown by orders of magnitude" over five years and needed to operate "faster and smarter" as a result. Investors did not read the cuts as a warning sign: Uber shares rose after the announcement, closing up 1.61% at $76.45.
Where the savings are going
Uber has committed more than $10 billion to autonomous vehicles, funding robotaxi fleets and equity stakes in self-driving developers including Rivian, Baidu and Pony.ai, which have collectively pledged some 120,000 vehicles to Uber's platform over time. Khosrowshahi has called the shift toward driverless rides "one of the largest opportunities in Uber's history." The company already runs Waymo's robotaxis through its own app in Austin and Atlanta, positioning Uber less as an operator of driverless cars and more as the demand-and-dispatch layer that autonomous fleets plug into.
That bet reflects a competitive landscape that has shifted quickly. With Waymo expanding city by city and Tesla now charging fares for its own driverless Cybercab in Austin, ride-hailing companies that don't own their own robotaxi technology face pressure to lock in partnerships before rivals do — and to free up capital to fund them.
The layoffs are expected to unfold over the coming months as Uber flattens its management structure and consolidates teams. For a company still adding riders and drivers, the cuts amount to a bet that leaner human operations, combined with a widening web of autonomous-vehicle partners, will matter more to Uber's next decade than the headcount it is giving up today.
