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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg used an all-hands meeting Thursday that was leaked to several media outlets to prepare staff for an “intense” year ahead and address recent controversial moves, as well as to lash out against events like Thursday’s consistently being leaked.
Business Insider reviewed a recording of the meeting, during which Zuckerberg said of the coming year, “This is a marathon, not a sprint. But honestly, this year feels a little more like a sprint to me.”
Zuck and Trump
Zuckerberg echoed comments he made during the company’s fourth-quarter-2024 earnings call Wednesday regarding the administration of President Donald Trump.
“After the past several years, we now have an opportunity to have a productive partnership with the U.S. government, and we’re going to take that,” he said, as reported by Business Insider. “I think it’s the right thing to do because there are several areas, even if we don’t agree on everything, where we have common cause for things that are going to make it so that we can serve our community better, and we can advance the interests of our country together.”
Zuckerberg added that the company would not compromise its principles or values.
DEI
Meta announced earlier this month that it would scale back diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, which was seen by many as another nod to the then-incoming Trump administration.
“The way to think about this is: We’re in the middle of a pretty rapidly changing policy and regulatory landscape that increasingly views any policy that might advantage any one group of people over another as something that is unlawful, and because of that, we need to adjust, or else we’ll just be out of alignment with what the law is saying,” Zuckerberg said, as reported by Business Insider.
“Historically, we’ve had a handful of specific programs that were very focused on certain underrepresented groups,” he added, “and I think the direction of the policy and regulatory and legal direction on a lot of the stuff is that you can’t do things that advantage specific groups, even if you’re trying to make up for other things.”
Fact-checking
Meta revealed earlier this month that it would scrap its third-party fact-checking program in favor of the community notes model used by X.