Meta to 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 seen Tuesday by The New York Times.

“I have decided to raise the bar on performance management and weed out low performers more quickly,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in the memo. “We typically manage people who don’t meet expectations over the course of a year, but we will now make deeper reductions based on performance during this cycle.”

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

The layoffs came 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 fact-checking posts and promote political information in its News Feed, rolling back many of its content moderation rules in anticipation of the new Trump administration. President-elect Donald J. Trump has criticized Meta and other technology companies for what he describes as censorship of conservative viewpoints.

A Meta spokesperson declined to comment on the layoffs. Bloomberg previously reported on these reductions.

On Meta’s internal message boards, employees asked whether the discounts 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 reductions will be aimed at people who don’t have the masculine energy he’s looking for?” » asked a Meta employee.

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

“It’s like if you want feminine energy, you want masculine energy,” Mr. Zuckerberg said. “I think everything is fine. But I think the corporate culture has sort of evolved into something that’s a little more neutralized.

In a separate memo to managers seen by the Times, Meta said the cuts were intended to ensure the company would have the “strongest talent” working in the company and that it would give Meta the opportunity to hire more new workers. Executives were also told those made redundant would receive “generous” severance packages.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.