In a wide meeting of questions and answers with META officials on Thursday, Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s chief executive, defended the recent changes he had made to relax the restrictions on the electronic speech and end the diversity initiatives and doubled to double Embrace the new President Trump Management.
“I want to be clear, after the last few years, we now have the opportunity to have a productive cooperation with the United States government,” Mr Zuckerberg said, according to the recording of the meeting he shared with the New York Times. “We’ll get that.”
Mr Zuckerberg, 40, said he was “fundamental” for Meta – the world’s largest social media company with Facebook, Instagram, Threads and Whatsapp – to be better with governments around the world.
“The government can actively oppose you, trying to get into the way and add a lot of friction or may be actively trying to help you break obstacles to help you,” he said. “It’s the right thing.”
In an hourly meeting with more than 70,000 META employees, Mr Zuckerberg also said that in 2025 it will be an important year for potentially transformative initiatives of the META business, including focusing on artificial intelligence, data centers and Metaverse’s iconic world.
Mr Zuckerberg’s observations marked its tight handle over the meta as it has rebuilt the company for the Trump era in destroying some of its employees. This month, Mr Zuckerberg announced sweeping changes to reduce META’s limitations in speech, ended a program control program and killed the work diversity. He also appeared at the inauguration of President Trump and has criticized former President Biden’s administration that he was anti-technical.
At Meta, Mr Zuckerberg has tightened workers’ disagreement in recent years, including a ban on workplace discussions about some disputed social and political issues.
Some employees have pushed the changes back, such as removing tampons from men’s bathrooms to the company, provided for transsexual and non -genital employees. On Thursday, some employees were released a registration form for employees to buy hygiene products and bring them to Meta’s offices in protest, two people who have seen the form said.
A Meta spokesman refused to comment. Business Insider previously referred to parts of Mr Zuckerberg’s conversation.
During the meeting, Mr Zuckerberg said that some of Meta’s changes – such as eliminating many of the Dei teams – was a reflection of the time.
“We are in the middle of a very rapidly changing policy and regulatory landscape that sees any policy that could benefit any group of people over another as something that is illegal,” he said. “Because of this, we and every other institution there should be adapted there.”
Mr Zuckerberg said that he personally believed that Meta had a “good history” for diversity and that the possession of a different workforce was a power.
Janelle Gale, head of the Meta people, told the meeting that there were other types of discrimination that were not widely recognized in META, but still had to be addressed. The company has fired women for sexual harassment, he said, and some people were excluded for their political views.
Mr Zuckerberg said Meta brought back a form of unconscious bias training that would not only focus on “some different groups”.
Some employees were upset that the form of the meeting had changed. For years, workers have voted on what questions to ask Mr Zuckerberg. Those who received the most votes were requested.
This time, that didn’t happen. A side chat room where the workers were able to comment on the live presentation, also removed, two people who watched the call were reported.
Mr Zuckerberg said the changes of the meeting have been deliberate due to an increasing number of leaks in recent years.
“I think there are many things that destroy the value that I am not going to speak,” he said, referring to the types of questions that have been made public. “Maybe it’s the nature of the operation of a company on this scale. But it’s a little bummer.”
After the meeting, Meta sent an internal message saying that the workers would end if they were talking to the media, two people who received the note said.
During the call, Mr Zuckerberg also noted the uncertainty about Tiktok, the Chinese video application banned in the United States in accordance with a federal law that entered into force this month. President Trump has signed an executive order to stop the ban.
Tiktok was one of Meta’s “main competitors”, Mr Zuckerberg said, adding that he was watching developments closely.
Employees asked Mr Zuckerberg about whether the appearance of Deepseek, a Chinese start -up AI that produced an advanced AI model for a fraction of many other companies, asked questions about the increasing META costs at the data centers.
Mr Zuckerberg said Deepseek would help META’s open source strategy around AI, which includes freely sharing code so that other companies can create applications and continue to improve technology. Some of Deepseek’s technological developments have already helped to improve META AI models, he said.
However, spending on data centers – which provide computing power for AI progress – will still be a competitive advantage for Meta, Mr Zuckerberg said.
“This year feels a little more like a sprint for me,” he said. “It will be a crazy year.”
Kate Conger and Sheera Frenkel They contributed reports.
