What Just Happened

General Motors began notifying 500 to 600 salaried IT workers of their terminations on Monday, May 12, according to CNBC and Bloomberg. The cuts hit employees in Austin, Texas and Warren, Michigan — both tech and software hubs inside GM's expanding digital operation.

GM confirmed the layoffs but declined to give exact numbers. The company's official statement: "GM is transforming its Information Technology organization to better position the company for the future."

How It Went Down

CNBC spoke directly with two laid-off employees. Both asked not to be named.

The process: an ominous email requesting a 15-minute virtual meeting at an odd hour. HR delivers a scripted message. Meeting ends. Job gone.

"No appreciation or empathy. No questions. Nothing," a data analyst with more than a decade at GM told CNBC.

A veteran programmer and data scientist described being pushed to use AI tools in the months before the cut. "They're going to push AI for everyday work and everything else," he said. "AI isn't going to do you any good if you don't know the business."

This Is NOT an Isolated Event

This week's cuts are the second major IT restructuring at GM in under two years. According to Tech Startups, GM eliminated more than 1,000 software and services jobs globally in an earlier round focused on Super Cruise, infotainment, and AI development.

The numbers reveal a broader pattern across the Detroit automakers.

According to CNBC, GM, Ford, and Stellantis have together eliminated more than 20,000 U.S. salaried jobs — roughly 19% of their combined white-collar workforces — from their respective employment peaks this decade.

GM led the way. The company expanded from 48,000 U.S. salaried workers in 2020 to 58,000 in 2022 — then reversed course, cutting roughly 11,000 of those positions through 2024.

Ford trimmed about 5,300 salaried workers from its 2020 peak, landing at approximately 30,700. Stellantis went from 15,000 to 11,000 over the same period.

Combined white-collar headcount across all three peaked at 102,000 in 2022. By end of 2024, it stood at 88,700. That's a 13% drop in two years.

AI's Role — And the Honesty Gap

GM refuses to discuss how much AI drove this specific round of cuts. A person familiar with the matter told CNBC that "AI played a role in the decision, but it was not the only reason."

Ford CEO Jim Farley was more direct. Speaking at the Aspen Ideas Festival in July, Farley said: "Artificial intelligence is going to replace literally half of all white-collar workers in the U.S." He added: "AI will leave a lot of white-collar people behind."

Gad Levanon, chief economist at the nonprofit Burning Glass Institute, told CNBC the jobs most at risk are clerical and repetitive office roles — finance, IT, coding. Exactly the roles GM just cut.

What's Missing From Coverage

Most outlets are framing this as a tech-sector story. It's a manufacturing-economy story.

The Detroit Three are NOT Silicon Valley. These are the companies that employ tens of thousands of middle-class American workers — union and salaried — in the industrial Midwest. When GM cuts 11,000 white-collar jobs in two years, that hollows out communities in Michigan and Ohio, not just San Francisco.

The leadership vacuum at the center of GM's AI push has drawn little attention. According to Tech Startups, Mike Abbott — the former Apple executive GM recruited to modernize its technology stack — departed in March after less than a year on the job, citing health reasons. He was considered a linchpin of GM's software transformation. His exit got almost no coverage. That's a significant organizational problem the company hasn't addressed publicly.

The financial pressure driving all of this stems from slower EV adoption than automakers projected. According to MITechNews, GM is simultaneously funding EV platforms, battery plants, AI systems, autonomous driving, and connected vehicle infrastructure — while dealing with softer demand than expected. Something has to give. It's giving in the form of IT workers' livelihoods.

What This Means for You

If you work in a corporate IT department — at a car company, a bank, an insurance firm, anywhere — the cuts now underway in Detroit are relevant to your job security. The people making these decisions are saying it out loud.

GM just handed 500 to 600 workers a 15-minute Zoom call and a scripted goodbye after years of service. Ford's CEO is publicly predicting half the white-collar workforce gets replaced. The data backs both of them up.

This isn't a Detroit problem. Detroit is just the latest place it's happening visibly.