Microsoft said it will cut 1,600 jobs in its XBOX division as part of 4,800 layoffs across the company, a move landing just as the company has also been approved this year to hire 2,273 workers under the H-1B visa program. The timing has made the announcement a flash point, especially for critics who see the layoffs and visa approvals as part of the same workforce picture.
Why this is resonating now is simple: the numbers are large, current and easy to compare. Microsoft is the sixth-largest beneficiary of H-1B visas, and it still has more applications pending, even as it reduces headcount in one of its best-known businesses. Asha Sharma, identified as the chief executive officer of Xbox in a Tech conference photo caption on Thursday, June 4, 2026, illustrates how closely the division remains tied to the company’s public face even as the cuts move forward.
There is also a legal backdrop that has sharpened the debate. A federal judge in Boston blocked the Trump administration’s $100,000 H-1B visa fee, calling it an unauthorized tax without congressional approval after the policy was raised from $2,000 to $5,000 and then to $100,000. The ruling does not answer Microsoft’s own staffing choices, but it has put the visa program back at the center of a broader fight over who gets hired, and at what cost.
That is where the friction sits. Microsoft has employees worldwide, but most of them are in the United States, so layoffs at XBOX are being read against the company’s willingness to keep seeking foreign workers through the same system. Online criticism has focused on the idea that American jobs are being handed to foreigners to cut labor costs, and the company has not explained whether the 1,600 XBOX layoffs are linked to the 2,273 H-1B approvals. That gap is now the key question hanging over the cuts.
What happens next is partly in Washington and partly inside Microsoft. The White House plans to appeal the Boston judge’s decision on the H-1B fee, while the company moves ahead with the layoffs and its remaining visa pipeline. For workers in XBOX, the immediate reality is already set: the reductions are coming, and the company has not said which roles are being eliminated.
