Ford CEO Jim Farley 'agrees' with Amazon CEO Andy Jassy's workforce predictions: "AI will leave a lot of white-collar people..."

Ford Motor CEO Jim Farley has become the latest Fortune 500 executive to publicly warn that artificial intelligence will eliminate millions of

white-collar jobs

across America. Speaking at the Aspen Ideas Festival, Farley predicted that "artificial intelligence is going to replace literally half of all white-collar workers in the US" and that "AI will leave a lot of white-collar people behind."Farley emphasized the growing disconnect between technological advancement and workforce preparation, noting that "we have to acknowledge that these new technologies are great" but questioned "what are we going to do as a society for the people that it leaves behind that are valuable humans?"The Ford CEO’s stark warning joins a growing chorus of major corporate leaders who are abandoning previous cautious language about AI's job impact.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy

told employees in June to expect

corporate workforce reductions

due to "once-in-a-lifetime" AI technology, while Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei predicted half of entry-level jobs could disappear within five years, potentially driving unemployment to 10-20%.

CEOs drop the sugarcoating, warns mass layoffs could be coming soon

The shift represents a dramatic change from executives' previous tendency to hedge when discussing AI's employment impact. JPMorgan Chase CEO Marianne Lake told investors the bank's operations headcount could fall 10% due to AI tools, while Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke has halted hiring unless managers can prove AI cannot perform the job.Fiverr CEO Micha Kaufman warned his staff that AI threatens all white-collar roles, from programmers to lawyers, writing "AI is coming for you." ThredUp CEO James Reinhart believes AI "will destroy way more jobs than the average person thinks."

Not every CEO have job apocalypse warnings

Not all tech executives share these dire predictions. OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap told podcasters he hasn't seen evidence of wholesale entry-level job replacement, while Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang dismissed widespread displacement warnings as "overly alarmist." However, the growing consensus among major CEOs suggests significant white-collar job disruption may be inevitable as AI capabilities rapidly advance.