Palo Alto Networks lays off hundreds of CyberArk employees one day after completing $25 billion acquisition
Cuts affect both Israeli and global staff as the company says overlaps between teams prompted strategic organizational changes, while pledging continued investment in technology and business continuity.
Cybersecurity giant Palo Alto Networks is laying off hundreds of CyberArk employees, including dozens in Israel, just a day after completing its acquisition of the Israeli company in a deal worth $25 billion. CyberArk employs roughly 4,000 people in total, about 1,000 of whom are based in Israel. Over 10% of CyberArk employees are set to be affected by the layoffs.
The company said in a statement: "Strategic organizational changes are a natural part of integrating two industry leaders. We do not publish exact numbers, but the changes affect a small portion of the combined workforce, primarily in roles where there is overlap. Our focus remains on business continuity and the successful integration of teams. We remain committed to investing in our teams and technology."
The closing of the transaction, the second-largest ever of an Israeli company, came one day after the largest ever local acquisition, Google’s $32 billion purchase of Wiz, neared completion with approval from EU regulators.
During a visit to Israel two months ago, his first in three years, CEO Nikesh Arora was explicit about the country’s importance. “I firmly believe that the most amount of innovation in cybersecurity comes out of Israel. It’s not for debate; it’s a fact,” he told local media. Palo Alto employed about 1,600 people in Israel prior to the acquisition and said it expects the CyberArk deal to double that workforce. Even during the war, Arora noted, the company hired roughly 700 employees locally.
Palo Alto’s Israeli R&D center has grown to occupy 22 floors of Tel Aviv’s Alon Tower, more than half the building, following a string of acquisitions. Since Arora took the helm in 2018, the company has executed a double-digit number of startup purchases worth billions of dollars, many of them Israeli. At the height of the 2023 conflict it acquired the Israeli firms Talon Cyber Security and Dig for a combined $1 billion.
The CyberArk transaction is different in scale and structure: it is Palo Alto’s first acquisition of a large publicly traded company. Arora said the integration should not trigger broad layoffs. “Things inevitably change when two companies merge, but it shouldn’t affect most of the organization,” he said in December. “This is not about 10% or 20% cuts. We have no such intention.” Because Palo Alto previously had no products in identity management, he added, “there’s no reason to cut there. On the contrary, we plan to invest more.”
