Mark Zuckerberg reportedly blamed one of his former executives, Sheryl Sandberg, for Meta’s recent “culture” issues during a meeting with President-elect Donald Trump—despite the fact that she has not been with the company for more than two years.
The Facebook founder is accused of playing the blame game at a November meeting at Mar-a-Lago, where The New York Times reports he also made assurances to not stand in Donald Trump’s way after he returns to office next week.
The newspaper reported that high-level discussions occurred between Zuckerberg and top Trump advisers—including Stephen Miller—and that crackdowns on immigration and diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts were all topics of discussion.
Zuckerberg, 40, was reportedly “amenable” to the president-elect’s plans.
According to the newspaper, Miller told him “he had an opportunity to help reform America.” Zuckerberg responded to Miller he would “do nothing to obstruct the Trump agenda” and would focus “solely on building tech products.”
“[Zuckerberg] said new guidelines and a series of layoffs amounted to a reset and that more changes were coming,” the Times reported, citing someone with knowledge of the meeting.
The Times amended its story on Thursday afternoon to add that Zuckerberg’s alleged displeasure with Sandberg was specifically over “an inclusivity initiative at Facebook that encouraged employees’ self-expression in the workplace.” The article did not say why Zuckerberg would take issue with such an initiative.
Sandberg, 55, resigned from Facebook in 2022. She remained a board member at its parent company, Meta, but left that role last year. She did not respond to requests for comment from the Daily Beast on Thursday.
There were no public signs of bad blood between the executives at the time of Sandberg’s resignation. Zuckerberg went as far as typing a lengthy post to Facebook during Sandberg’s final month where he praised his business partner of 14 years.
“It’s unusual for a business partnership like ours to last so long,” he wrote. “I think ours did because Sheryl is such an amazing person, leader, partner, and friend. She cares deeply about the people in her life and she is generous about nurturing relationships and helping you grow as a person.”
He added that Sandberg’s position would not be filled because he was “not sure that would be possible since she’s a superstar.”
“I’m sad that the day is coming when I won’t get to work as closely with Sheryl,” he said. “But more than anything, I’m grateful for everything she has done to build Meta. She has done so much for me, for our community, and for the world—and we’re all better off for it.”
Their relationship continued into 2024, when Zuckerberg told MorningBrew that Sandberg raised him “like a parent almost” and they remain “pretty close friends.”
Zuckerberg is expected to join tech billionaires Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos in sitting front and center at Trump’s inauguration on Monday.
That prominent place on Trump’s big day comes after Meta donated $1 million to the president-elect’s inaugural fund and after he brought about sweeping changes to its brands earlier this month.
Meta’s new era will see it loosen speech restrictions on topics like immigration, gender, and sexuality. Its fact-checking department has been nixed, and it will now insert more political content into people’s feeds after years of suppressing that very material.
Also eliminated are Meta’s D.E.I. policies and its position of chief diversity officer. The company will no longer have diversity hiring goals for women and minorities, and it will no longer prioritize minority-owned businesses when hiring vendors, the Times reported earlier this month.
Sources told the paper that Zuckerberg himself was the driving force behind these changes, with him springing into action after his Mar-a-Lago meeting on Nov. 27.
Zuckerberg, who used to rarely discusses politics, even went on Joe Rogan’s podcast this month to discuss the changes and disparage Joe Biden’s advisers, who he claimed “cursed” and “screamed” at his employees at Meta.
“They pushed us super hard to take down things that honestly were true,” he alleged to Rogan.
Zuckerberg’s MAGA transformation reached new heights after he agreed this week to host a black-tie inaugural ball for Trump, Vice President-elect JD Vance, and all of their wealthy GOP pals.
