Warren Demands Target CEO Explain Layoffs Despite Company's Strong Financial Results

Senator Elizabeth Warren sent a formal letter to Target CEO Michael Fiddelke on March 15, 2026, demanding an explanation for why the Minneapolis-based retailer laid off hundreds of workers even as it posted strong financial results and collected tax benefits under federal law.

Warren's letter, addressed to Fiddelke at Target's headquarters at 1000 Nicollet Mall, cited the company's announced plan to eliminate 500 positions on top of the 1,000 workers it cut late last year. The letter also referenced a PBS report that Target is eliminating 1,800 corporate jobs in total, and pointed to the company's own March 3, 2026 earnings release as evidence of its financial health.

"The sequence of events regarding these layoffs — which come after huge tax breaks from President Trump's tax law and massive profits last year — raises questions about the rationale for the job cuts, and whether they represent another example of unchecked corporate greed emboldened by the Trump administration," Warren wrote to Fiddelke.

Target was one of eight major employers to receive letters that Sunday. Warren also contacted the chief executives of Microsoft, Amazon, Home Depot, Meta, Nike, Verizon, and UPS. Combined, the companies account for tens of thousands of lost positions over the past several months. Microsoft alone has laid off approximately 15,000 workers in the last year, according to Warren's letter to CEO Satya Nadella.

Warren asked each company to respond by March 30 with several specific items: how much of a tax cut they received in 2025 following President Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act, whether they anticipated any tariff refunds, and whether they made any contributions to Trump's projects, among other requests.

The senator framed the layoffs against a labor market she described as particularly unforgiving for displaced workers. Drawing on job-creation data cited in her letter to Nadella, Warren wrote that the number of jobs created in 2025 was down by almost 92 percent compared to 2024, representing "the slowest annual growth outside of a recession since 2003." February's figures only deepened the concern, with Warren noting a "sharp decline in monthly jobs growth" that month alongside downward revisions to December and January numbers, calling it "another warning sign."

For workers pushed out in that environment, Warren warned the consequences could be severe: "newly laid off workers could be forced to take lower-paying jobs — if they are able to find employment at all."

The broader picture across the eight named companies illustrates the scale of what Warren is scrutinizing. Meta, which Reuters reported is considering cutting up to 20 percent of its workforce, paid an effective federal income tax rate of just over 3.5 percent in 2025, the lowest recorded since the company went public as Facebook in 2012, according to an analysis by Matt Gardner at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

Target's stock was down 0.25 percent at the time the letters became public, a muted market reaction that contrasted with the sharp political pressure now landing on Fiddelke's desk. The March 30 deadline gives Target's CEO roughly two weeks to provide answers that Warren is unlikely to let pass quietly.