Economic Observer reporter Liu Sixuan

On November 11th, Tencent held an internal staff meeting on its 28th anniversary celebration. There are rumors that the management team, including Tencent founder, chairman of the board, and CEO Ma Huateng, announced on site that Tencent plans to lay off 50% of its workforce. The news quickly spread on social platforms such as Xiaohongshu and Maimai's "Tencent Colleague Circle".

A source close to Tencent told the Economic Observer that this statement is not true. On the afternoon of November 12th, Zhang Jun, the Public Relations Director of Tencent, responded on his personal Weibo account, saying, "This is a pure misunderstanding and rumor.

Zhang Jun said that at the meeting, Tencent's management actively expressed their determination to accelerate organizational change, and specifically mentioned that this is different from "reducing costs and increasing efficiency" a few years ago. The previous time was relatively passive and more inclined towards "cost reduction"; This time is a proactive move towards the AI era, focusing more on "efficiency improvement", inspiring the team to create new value, encouraging frontline colleagues to actively raise their hands and move forward, while the middle management needs to become flatter and more agile.

Regarding the circulating "50%" value, the speech at the meeting referred to the fact that 50% of people, like the army, have a responsibility to defend their territory and improve their existing core business through efficiency enhancement; The other 50%, like the navy, embrace the wave, explore AI Native, and expand new development space. Zhang Jun said that this is Tencent's re scheduling of resources to adapt to the AI era, with a larger analogy, and may also be the source of the rumor of "50% layoffs".

In addition to the above content, there is a circulating "original speech of Ma Huateng's all staff meeting" on social media: Tencent used to mainly focus on light asset business, and now it is doing heavy asset business for the first time. Faced with new tactics, the company needs to promote organizational change, and this round of change is "life and death"; Employees can no longer "sit and enjoy" or "leisurely feel safe", but should "hurry and stand up". In the above "original text", Ma Huateng expressed "hope to speak more harshly than before, speak the ugly words first, and hope everyone understands and supports".

Tencent has not responded to whether the above content is indeed Ma Huateng's on-site speech.

According to the aforementioned informed sources, the conference is Tencent's annual all staff communication, where the management team will share the company's strategies and thoughts. Shenzhen employees will participate in this meeting offline, while employees from other cities can watch the live broadcast online.

Several Tencent insiders told the Economic Observer that they did not pay attention to the management's statements during the conference and only gained some understanding of the matter after seeing online discussions; In the past year, the industry has been continuously affected by AI, and the sensitivity of internal employees to discussions related to layoffs has gradually decreased.

The last time Tencent's management publicly discussed layoffs was at the annual general meeting of shareholders on May 13th. On that day, a shareholder asked whether Tencent would initiate a major layoff in the context of intensive layoffs in Silicon Valley technology companies. Tencent President Liu Chiping replied, "There is definitely no plan for a major layoff, Tencent is different from Silicon Valley companies.

On November 18th, Tencent will announce its third quarter performance for 2026. According to Tencent's first and second quarter performance reports, as of June 30th, Tencent Group had a total of 115927 employees, an increase of 1079 employees compared to March 31st.

(Author Liu Sixuan)