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What just happened? Around a month after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg complained about company leaks, roughly 20 employees have been fired for allegedly leaking confidential information, and it sounds as if more terminations will follow. Exactly what the leaks entailed is unclear.
Zuckerberg highlighted the problem of company leaks during an all-hands meeting last month. Ironically, his rant leaked online almost immediately.
“We try to be really open and then everything I say leaks. It sucks,” Zuckerberg said.
“I think there are a bunch of things that are value-destroying that I’m not going to talk about,” he added. “Maybe it’s the nature of running a company of this scale. But it’s a little bit of a bummer.”
Meta said that employees discovered to be leaking information would be fired. Now, The Verge reports that “roughly” 20 workers have lost their jobs for ignoring the warning.
“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,” Meta told the publication. “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. We take this seriously, and will continue to take action when we identify leaks.”
Meta’s chief technology officer, Andrew Bosworth, said the company was close to identifying the leakers earlier this month.
Meta has changed elements of its meetings to try to mitigate the leaking problem. No longer can employees vote on which questions to ask Zuckerberg – the CEO used to answer those with the most votes. The comments section in the live presentations has also been disabled, and questions deemed potentially problematic if leaked are now skipped. Zuckerberg also said he would be less transparent due to the leaks.
The surge in leaks at Meta appears tied to Zuckerberg’s growing ties with Donald Trump in recent months. The company donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund in December, and Zuckerberg’s ending of Meta DEI programs, the removal of third-party fact checkers, and the cutting back on censorship have been viewed as an appeasement to the president.
Zuckerberg was one of the many tech executives who were quick to congratulate Trump on his election victory. But the pair have had a strained relationship in the past. Facebook banned Trump for two years shortly after the January 6 insurrection in 2021. Trump has also called Facebook the enemy of the people, accused Zuckerberg of plotting against him during the 2020 election, and has said he would “spend the rest of his life in prison” if he ever did it again.
Meta recently confirmed that it had approved a plan to increase bonuses for its executives by up to 200% of their base salary. This comes as the company lays off 5% of its workforce, or 4,000 people.
In other Meta news, the company apologized for an “error” yesterday that flooded Reels with violent and pornographic content.
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