Meta must cut 5% of its employees in a new round of layoffs

Meta plans to lay off up to 5 percent of its employees based on performance reviews, according to an internal memo to workers Tuesday seen by The New York Times.

“I have decided to raise the bar on performance management and move out of underperformers faster,” Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, said in the memo. “We typically manage people who don’t meet expectations over the course of a year, but now we’ll be making more substantial performance-based cuts during this cycle.”

Mr. Zuckerberg said in the memo that workers whose roles were cut would be replaced by new hires in 2025.

The layoffs came just days after Meta announced sweeping changes to its content moderation policies. The company, which owns Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads, said it would no longer police certain types of hate speech, including allowing users of its apps to suggest that LGBTQ identities are rooted in mental illness.

Meta also said it would stop vetting posts and promoting political news in its Newsfeed, reversing several of its content moderation rules in preparation for the incoming Trump administration. President-elect Donald J. Trump has criticized Meta and other tech companies for what he describes as censorship of conservative views.

A spokesman for Meta declined to comment on the layoffs. Bloomberg earlier reported on the cuts.

Last week, Mr. Zuckerberg that the company was ending its diversity, equity and inclusion programs effective immediately. In an interview with podcaster Joe Rogan on Friday, Mr. Zuckerberg also that “masculine energy, I think, is good.”

“It’s like, you want feminine energy, you want masculine energy,” said Mr. Zuckerberg. “I think that’s all good. But I think the corporate culture had kind of turned towards being this somewhat more neutered thing.”

In Meta’s internal message boards, employees asked if the cuts would target specific groups, such as the LGBTQ community or people of color.

“Given what we heard Mark say about DEI last week, do we think these cuts are coming for people who don’t have the masculine energy he’s looking for?” asked an employee.

In a separate memo to executives seen by The Times, Meta said the cuts were to ensure the company had the “strongest talent” working in the company and would give Meta the opportunity to hire new staff. Executives were also told those laid off would receive “generous” severance packages.

The changes coincide with Mr. Zuckerberg’s broader push to retool his company for the Trump era and protect Meta from the threat of regulation by forging closer ties with the incoming administration.

Last year, Mr. Zuckerberg his first visit to Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s private club in Palm Beach, Florida. Mr. Zuckerberg donated $1 million to Mr. Trump’s inaugural fund, and he has embraced working with the administration to fight what he describes as unnecessarily harsh regulation in the EU and other overseas markets.

Mr. Zuckerberg also plans to attend Mr. Trump’s inauguration ceremony on Jan. 20, according to two people familiar with his plans who spoke on condition of anonymity. And he will host a black-tie reception for the president-elect that evening, along with Republican mega-donors Miriam Adelson and Tilman Fertitta, according to a copy of the invitation shared with The Times.

A spokesman for Meta declined to comment on Mr. Zuckerberg’s political activities.

Meta has more than 72,000 employees, according to its latest earnings report, and the cuts that Mr. Zuckerberg announced Tuesday would eliminate about 3,600 people.

The cuts also represent Meta’s first major cull since 2023, when Mr. Zuckerberg began what he called the “year of efficiency,” a move to thin his workforce after years of what he said was “over hiring” during the pandemic. Mr. Zuckerberg pushed managers across departments to set higher performance goals to weed out underperformers, resulting in Metas cutting about a third of its total workforce by 2023.

Still, Meta’s ranks have grown. Mr. Zuckerberg has aimed to replace many of those employees with new hires focused on artificial intelligence, as Meta and other big tech companies focus on developing chatbots and other AI-powered services.