Microsoft is paying people to leave, and Xbox is on the list. The company told staff on Monday that it is offering a Voluntary Exit Offer to about 60,000 employees, more than a quarter of its 223,000-person workforce. Reuters reported, citing a person familiar with the matter, that the eligible units include AI experiences, Copilot, finance, human resources, Xbox and Windows + Devices, while marketing, commercial sales and security are excluded. Microsoft confirmed the program and published chief people officer Amy Coleman’s note to employees.
Watch the short YouTubeThe offer goes to employees at vice president level and below in the United States, Canada, India and the United Kingdom. The terms are in line with Microsoft’s standard severance, without the extended healthcare that made the spring retirement program attractive. Eligible staff received an email with their offer on Monday, have until early December to decide, and leave on December 31 if they accept.
Coleman: “The Voluntary Exit Offer is new for us”
Coleman’s note frames the program as a choice rather than a cut. “The Voluntary Exit Offer is new for us,” she wrote. “We’ll learn from it.” She added that “there is no one-size-fits-all approach for every team or every employee,” and that the offer “gives eligible employees who may be considering a future outside the company a new choice.” Microsoft has also said the program is not a replacement for layoffs, which remain an option depending on business conditions.
It is the third exit program Microsoft has run this year. In April it offered retirement packages to roughly 8,750 US employees whose age and years of service added up to 70, and more than 30 percent accepted. Earlier in the year it also gave underperforming staff a choice between 16 weeks of pay and a performance improvement plan.
Xbox has had a bad month already
For Xbox the timing is uncomfortable. In the last two weeks the division has lost its first chief operating officer after three months, and extended the consultation at Arkane Lyon while it looks for a partner to finish Blade. Microsoft has not said how many Xbox employees are eligible or how many it expects to take the offer, and there is no team-by-team breakdown.
Microsoft reports its first-quarter results after markets close on Wednesday, October 28. The company has forecast $175 billion in capital spending for the 2026 calendar year, almost all of it on AI data centres and chips, and the buyout is the clearest sign yet of where the money to pay for that is coming from. The Reddit thread that spread the news hit 337 upvotes in the gaming leaks subreddit, with the top comment reading simply, “What a scary world we live in.”
