Amazon stumbled badly in its attempt to quietly roll out another round of mass layoffs late Tuesday after an internal email mistakenly suggested that thousands of employees had already been let go before the company formally announced any cuts.
The error affected employees at Amazon Web Services, the company’s cloud computing division, according to Reuters. The email was sent hours ahead of a planned announcement Wednesday morning and appeared to confirm that as many as 16,000 jobs were being eliminated, even though those layoffs had not yet been carried out.
The message went out to staff in the United States, Canada, and Costa Rica and was signed by Colleen Aubrey, a senior vice president overseeing applied artificial intelligence solutions at AWS. In the email, Aubrey told employees that affected workers had already been notified, triggering confusion and alarm among recipients who had not received any prior notice.
The email also invited employees to attend a team-wide meeting, which workers later said was abruptly canceled, adding to the sense of chaos inside the company.
“Changes like this are hard on everyone,” Aubrey wrote in the message. “These decisions are difficult and are made thoughtfully as we position our organization and AWS for future success.”
Internally, the latest wave of job cuts has reportedly been referred to as “Project Dawn,” a label that quickly spread among employees in Slack messages reviewed by Reuters.
Amazon has not publicly confirmed either the scale or the timing of the proposed layoffs and declined to respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
The bungled communication comes as Amazon continues a sweeping effort to reduce its corporate workforce by roughly 30,000 positions, a plan the company first disclosed in October. About 14,000 roles have already been eliminated, and Amazon has warned that additional reductions are likely.
While the total number of cuts represents a small slice of Amazon’s roughly 1.58 million global employees, it amounts to nearly 10 percent of the company’s corporate staff, underscoring the depth of the restructuring.
As Amazon grappled with internal turmoil, developments continued on a separate front involving federal immigration enforcement in Minnesota. President Donald Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, struck a conciliatory tone Tuesday after meeting with Minnesota’s Democratic leadership, describing his conversations as “productive.”
Homan met with Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey following Trump’s decision to remove Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino and place Homan in charge of federal immigration enforcement efforts in the state. That shake-up came days after a Border Patrol agent fatally shot 37-year-old Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.
“We all agree that we need to support our law enforcement officers and get criminals off the streets,” Homan wrote in a post on X. “While we don’t agree on everything, these meetings were a productive starting point and I look forward to more conversations with key stakeholders in the days ahead.”
Walz’s office said after the meeting that the governor reiterated his demand for impartial investigations into the recent shootings. He also called for a swift and significant reduction in the number of federal agents operating in Minnesota and urged an end to what he described as a campaign of retribution against the state.
Mayor Frey echoed those concerns, saying his primary request was for Operation Metro Surge to conclude as quickly as possible. He warned that public safety depends on community trust and argued that enforcement tactics creating fear or division undermine that goal. Frey also stressed that Minneapolis does not enforce federal immigration laws.
Walz further requested that state officials serve as the main point of contact with Homan’s team as discussions continue.
Together, the developments highlight turbulence on multiple fronts, with Amazon facing internal backlash over its handling of layoffs while federal and state leaders attempt to de-escalate tensions surrounding immigration enforcement in Minnesota.
[READ MORE: Police Shut Down Second Anti-Deportation Protest at Minnesota Hotel After Violence Erupts]
