Microsoft offers voluntary buyouts to about 60,000 staff as headcount shrinks

The offer is far wider than the earlier retirement scheme, and it fits a plan to cut headcount while funding AI infrastructure.

Microsoft has opened voluntary buyout offers to roughly 60,000 staff in the US, UK, Canada and India, a far wider round than the retirement scheme limited to about 9,000 people earlier this year. Chief executive Satya Nadella has said total people costs will fall while cost per head and GPU access per researcher rise, a plan that trims headcount to fund AI infrastructure. Headcount has also dropped year over year for the first time in a decade, to about 223,000 as of June 30. The package is largely standard severance, so uptake is uncertain, but even a 5 percent acceptance would mean around 3,000 departures, and eligible staff have until December to decide. Separately, Dan Greenawalt, who led Forza Motorsport, is retiring from Microsoft after almost 27 years, and his Turn 10 Studios has been folded into Playground Games.