According to Bloomberg this week’s hatchet job is said to be all about trimming managerial fat and restoring some kind of engineering dignity to the silicon giant, led by Lip-Bu Tan. The move would affect thousands of employees worldwide, though Intel is being its usual tight-lipped self about the precise headcount or schedule.

Tan, who shuffled into the top job last month, has wasted no time doing what CEOs do best these days—firing people in the name of “efficiency.” The man’s planning a full internal overhaul, especially around Intel’s chipmaking and half-baked AI strategy. During a recent town hall, Tan gave staff a not-so-cryptic pep talk: “tough decisions” were coming. No prizes for guessing what that meant.

This is the same outfit that posted a $1.6 billion loss recently, despite some parts of the business still making money. Chipzilla suffered a humiliating $19 billion wipeout in 2024, its first annual loss since 1986.

Tan is expected to pull a smaller, sharper version of his predecessor Pat Gelsinger’s grand strategy. Instead of world domination, he’s going for functional execution and fewer middle managers getting in the way of actual engineers.

If you’re keeping score, that’s more than 23,500 tech workers dumped since in 2025. Google has axed staff in its Platforms and Devices division, and Microsoft’s lining up its own May massacre. Across the industry, AI restructuring is the new justification for layoffs, with every HR press release now reading like a jargon-filled eulogy.