# SanDisk's 3,400% Stock Boom Comes With Job Cuts: Israeli Workers Lose Out as India Gains > Source: > Published: 2026-08-26 12:14:42+00:00 # SanDisk's 3,400% Stock Boom Comes With Job Cuts: Israeli Workers Lose Out as India Gains ## India's work focuses on drives for cloud and AI servers, while Israel gets a new platform called Stargate, built around controllers Dozens of SanDisk staff in Israel [lost their jobs](https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/tech-industry-record-job-cuts-2026-1813332) last week, and work on the fast drives cloud firms buy in bulk is moving to India. They went months before a staff share plan opens, one that lets workers buy stock at a discount. SanDisk shares closed on Friday at $1,596 (£1,170), against the mid-$40s a year ago. Industry sources told Globes about the move to India. SanDisk has not confirmed it. ## How the Share Plan Would Have Paid The plan takes money from a worker's pay each month. On a set date it buys them shares, at a discount of about 15%. Workers who leave before that date get nothing. AltShare, which runs staff share schemes, put the likely SanDisk price at $700 to $800 a share. Set against Friday's close, that is a gain of about $800 (£590) a share, and staff are angry at the timing. When it split from Western Digital, SanDisk set aside 4.3 million shares for the plan, about 2.9% of its share capital. Another 17.4 million shares sit in a separate scheme. The plan opens in a few months, and Friday's close valued the company at about $230 billion (£169 billion). Over the year, the shares have risen about 35 times. Ronen Solomon, who runs AltShare, said he doubted the cuts had been timed around the plan. A firm that size would not schedule job losses around a purchase date, he told Globes, because such schemes are 'part of its routine compensation mechanism.' Nobody has been cut outside Israel. Hundreds of workers who stayed in Israel are still due to collect their shares in December. The chart below sets the likely purchase price against Friday's close and marks where the run began a year ago. SanDisk has three development sites in Israel, at Kfar Saba, Tefen, and Omer, with about 700 staff between them. They do chip design and the code that stops a worn memory cell from losing data. The Kfar Saba site came with M-Systems, which SanDisk bought in 2006. Western Digital ran about 1,200 people in Israel before the two companies split last year. The work going to India, industry sources said, is on the drives inside cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Israel gets a new platform called Stargate instead, built around controllers, the chips that decide where each file lands on a drive. The company has confirmed none of it. SanDisk itself was founded by the Israeli entrepreneur Eli Harari in 1988. ## What an Israeli Engineer Costs Ethosia, a technology recruiter, puts an Israeli engineer at up to 40% dearer than an Indian one, once pension and social costs are added. Eyal Solomon, who runs the firm, gave two reasons. Long spells of army reserve duty keep engineers away from their desks for weeks. A strong shekel makes the ones who stay dearer. SanDisk is not alone. Hiring abroad by Israeli companies rose more than 23% in the first half of 2026, Aman Group said. Sarit Assulin, the group's offshore division manager, wrote in June that 'salary costs in Israel remain among the highest in the world.' Most of that hiring goes to Romania, Poland, Serbia, and Portugal rather than India. Intel and Intuit have expanded in India over the past year too. ## A Record Year SanDisk reported revenue of about $9 billion (£6.6 billion) for the quarter earlier this month. That is just under five times what the same three months brought in last year. Its order book stands at $91 billion, most of it under long contracts with cloud and AI buyers. Server farms now account for 38% of what the company sells, up from 12% a year ago. Bank of America has a $2,500 price target on the stock, raised from $2,100 by analyst Wamsi Mohan on 1 July. Not all forecasts agree; Mizuho cut its target this week to $1,875 from $1,900. Shares fell 10.5% on Monday, indicating the recent decline has cooled since Friday's close. The staff cuts last week will not be included in the plan when it opens in a few months, as their work is moving to India. SanDisk has not confirmed whether this move will proceed as described and did not respond to questions about the job cuts or transfer. © Copyright IBTimes 2026. All rights reserved.