- Mark Zuckerberg is overhauling Meta's DEI initiatives — and reportedly blaming his former COO, Sheryl Sandberg, for an old inclusivity policy.
Mark Zuckerberg is trying to shift the blame for Meta's inclusive company policies onto his former chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, as he seeks to strengthen ties with President-elect Donald Trump, the New York Times reports.
In a meeting with Trump advisor Stephen Miller late last year, the Meta chief blamed Facebook's former COO for an inclusivity initiative that encouraged staffers' self-expression at work, the Times reported, citing a person with knowledge of the meeting. Sandberg served as the company's chief operating officer for more than 14 years and later as a Meta board member, before her exit in May of last year.
During the meeting, Zuckerberg reportedly told Miller that he would do nothing to obstruct Trump's agenda, which included going to war with DEI initiatives previously embraced by corporate America. He assured Miller that upcoming layoffs and new guidelines would amount to a reset at the company, the report said.
The new guidelines, which include an overhaul of Meta's content moderation and inclusivity initiatives, are part of an apparent effort to bring Meta's platforms into closer ideological alignment with the incoming Trump administration.
Zuckerberg appears to be trying to repair ties with Trump before the President-elect's second term. Earlier this month, Meta replaced its former president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, with prominent Republican Joel Kaplan and added Trump-ally and UFC president and CEO Dana White to its board.
He's also donated to a Trump inauguration fund and is expected to attend the event alongside Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.
Meta joins the DEI rollback
Diversity, equity, and inclusion programs have become increasingly controversial in the U.S.
Billionaires, including hedge fund manager Bill Ackman and Elon Musk, began attacking the initiative in late 2023. Trump has also criticized the initiatives and when he returns to office he is expected to restore and double down on his 2020 executive order that banned diversity training for government agencies and non-profits.
Firms including Walmart and McDonald's have rolled back their diversity efforts since Trump's victory in the U.S. election.
Earlier this month, Meta joined the list — formally announcing plans to end its major DEI programs. In a memo obtained by Axios, the firm linked the changes to shifts in the “legal and policy landscape surrounding diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in the United States."
The memo, sent by Janelle Gale, Meta's vice president of human resources, said the term 'DEI' had "become charged, in part because it is understood by some as a practice that suggests preferential treatment of some groups over others."
The company is also overhauling its content moderation in an effort to restore "free expression" to its social media platforms. Zuckerberg said last week that content moderation had gone too far on the company's platforms in a video announcing that he was ditching fact-checking for X-style community notes.
However, the announcement has prompted some backlash, reportedly leading Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth to say Meta handled some of the recent changes to its content moderation policies clumsily.
On Tuesday, Bosworth told employees that Meta's changes were “pretty ham-fisted, borderline unintentional,” and the firm is planning some corrections, The Information reported.
Representatives for Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fortune, made outside normal working hours.
