Mark Zuckerberg has sacked 20 Meta employees after they leaked information to the media following the tech giant’s pivot towards US President Donald Trump.
The firings come just weeks after comments made during internal meetings by Zuckerberg and other senior employees appeared in news reports.
‘We tell employees when they join the company, and we offer periodic reminders that it is against our policies to leak internal information, no matter the intent,” a Meta spokesperson said, confirming the job losses.
“We recently conducted an investigation that resulted in roughly 20 employees being terminated for sharing confidential information outside the company, and we expect there will be more,” the company added.
“We take this seriously and will continue to take action when we identify leaks.”
Meta, which owns social media giants such as Facebook and Instagram, has faced internal dissent since Zuckerberg announced a number of policies which critics have claimed were designed to cozy up to the new Trump administration.
This included scrapping DEI initiatives and removing fact-checking efforts in favour of community notes similar to those used on X.
Due to the frequent leaks, Zuckerberg told employees he would no longer be forthcoming with information.
“We try to be really open, and then everything I say leaks. It sucks,” Zuckerberg said in a meeting first reported by The Verge.
Somewhat ironically, Zuckerberg’s remarks were then leaked to the press, and this led to Meta issuing a company-wide memo warning staff that revealing information to the press was a sackable offence.
Meta chief information security officer Guy Rosen, in a memo seen by the New York Post, said: ‘When information is stolen or leaked, there are repercussions beyond the immediate security impact.
“Our teams become demoralised, and we all waste time that is better spent working on our products and toward our goals and mission.”
Meta’s chief technology officer Andrew Bosworth, later said the company was “making progress on catching people”.
This was then also leaked to the press.
Zuckerberg has previously warned his employees to ‘buckle up’ for the coming year and said that Meta would be a productive partner with the White House.
Tech leaders have broadly fallen in line around Trump since he won the election in November 2024, with Zuckerberg making a particular turn towards the Republican since his return to office.
Zuckerberg has multiplied his advances towards Trump, who last summer threatened the tech tycoon with life imprisonment after Meta excluded the president from Facebook in January 2021 for encouraging the assault on the Capitol.
The CEO and founder has dined with the Republican on several occasions, donated to the president’s inauguration fund, eased up on content moderation, and ended Facebook’s US fact-checking programme in an effort to draw closer to the new Republican leadership in Washington.
His longtime political affairs boss was also replaced by a prominent Republican, and he named Trump ally Dana White to his board after the US election.
The measures align with the conservative views of the president and his allies, as well as masculinist entertainers and personalities like Elon Musk.
On the Joe Rogan podcast, Zuckerberg complained that “a lot of the corporate world is pretty culturally neutered” and that embracing masculine energy is good”.
These most recent firings come on top of the roughly 4,000 workers laid off earlier this month who were classified as ‘low performers.’
The cuts amounted to about five per cent of the company’s workforce.
Zuckerberg said he expects an ‘intense year’ ahead as Meta competes with rivals to develop advanced artificial intelligence products and signaled that the company would hire new workers to replace the ousted employees.
…..
Explore the world of impactful news with CitiNewsroom on WhatsApp!
Click on the link to join the Citi Newsroom channel for curated, meaningful stories tailored just for YOU:
https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaCYzPRAYlUPudDDe53x
No spam, just the stories that truly matter! #StayInformed #CitiNewsroom #CNRDigital
