Zuckerberg’s right-right policy shift lands on the multi-staff, targeting Apple | Real Time Headlines

Mark Zuckerberg Starting 2025 with Instagram videos, outlining his vision for what he calls “restoring free expression” Yuanand working with the President Donald Trump Zuckerberg said that it has followed U.S. companies and stifled innovation.

What Zuckerberg didn’t say in his five-minute monologue is that Mehta will use his own internal host to review employee criticisms of the program. He hasn’t said that by staying comfortable with the new president, his company may be able to shift Trump’s anger to the direction of Meta’s annoying rivals apple.

For Meta’s nearly 75,000 employees, the singular power of its 40-year-old founder and CEO has been more than ever since Trump’s victory in November and his inauguration in January. All are more obvious than ever.

On February 6, Zuckerberg visited the White House to discuss how Mehta can help the administration defend and advance U.S. technical leadership abroad,” Mehta spokesman Andy Stone said in postal On X.

Based on interviews with more than a dozen current and former employees who asked not to be named to speak frankly about what happened to them inside the company, a deep uncertainty about what will happen to Meta’s culture in the coming years sex. The second president.

At its headquarters in Silicon Valley, tensions are evident as Meta experiences its latest round of layoffs. In January, the company announced plans The lowest performance of layoffsaccounting for 5% of its overall workforce and began layoffs this week.

People familiar with the matter say Meta has been trying to stop the driving force of employees by reviewing criticism in its internal social networks. The employee who left a comment believed Negative impacts in the workplace They said their statements will be used for performance reviews and may affect their work.

Sources also told CNBC that employees who may leave are now concerned about exiting due to policy changes because of disillusionment, as Meta has publicly stated that it is eliminating “low-performing”.

Like many of its tech peers, Meta began to shrink in 2022 and continued to trim the edges. The company laid off 21,000 jobs in 2022 and 2023, or nearly a quarter of jobs. Among the unemployed Citizen Integrity Groupas we all know, is a criticism of Zuckerberg’s leadership.

Some major changes are happening now, appearing to follow Trump’s leadership directly at the expense of company employees and users of the platform, people familiar with the matter said.

Most notably, the Mega has recently ended Diversity, equity and inclusion programs Relax Content modification guideTrump’s two areas in his attack The war on “Awakening Policy”.

Dangyuan Submit annual report The filing pointed out its drastic changes in late January in the Securities and Exchange Commission and listed them in the section on business risks.

“In January 2025, we announced certain changes to content policy and law enforcement efforts to further express freely on our platform and to mitigate excessive implementation of certain content policies,” Mehta said. “If we cannot Maintaining and enhancing our brand, we may be compromised, maintaining or expanding the capabilities of our users, marketers and developer bases, our business and financial performance may be compromised.”

Mehta declined to comment.

One of the main problems with Zuckerberg is Elon Musk’s At the heart of the Trump administration, he focused on cutting regulations. Meta competes with Musk’s X and is investing heavily in artificial intelligence, an area of ​​particular interest to Musk and his startup XAI. Musk’s role in the White House may put Meta at a disadvantage when it comes to policies surrounding AI.

But Zuckerberg is not only AI and Musk, but also looking for one leg of Apple.

Zuckerberg hopes Mehta’s improved relationship with the White House can help put pressure on iPhone maker after years of fighting between the two tech heavyweights. Both companies are targets of antitrust lawsuits by the U.S. government.

META founders are still upset about Apple’s 2021 iOS privacy update, which makes it harder for Meta to track users across the Internet $10 billion dent In the company’s advertising revenue in 2022. Internally, this period is known as the “Tim Cook Recession” among some meta-employees.

Many application developers, including Spotify and Epic Games, which fights Apple over the company’s app store rules and control over its ecosystem. Zuckerberg has been one of Apple’s biggest critics in the past, but he has become more hostile to the company in recent public interviews. Sources told CNBC that it was the entire effort to move antitrust censorship from META to Apple.

In January interview Zuckerberg, with podcast host Joe Rogan, claims Apple has become less innovative and it is making hardware peripherals smoothly integrate third parties into Apple to prevent third parties from creating hardware peripherals. in mobile operating system.

“They built things like capsules, which are cool, but they just completely hindered the ability of anyone else to connect to the iPhone in the same way,” Zuckerberg said.

Meta’s business has recovered from the downstream of iOS changed, mainly due to the company’s Invest in AI and the new features they provide to advertisers. In January, the company reported that $160.6 billion in advertising revenue in 2024 increased by nearly 40% from 2021. The company’s stock has been on a massive rise since the brutal 2022, four times the past two years and closed at a record $728.56 on Thursday.

Zuckerberg told Rogan that if Apple stops “random rules” of taxing companies, Meta’s profits will double.

Meta’s move toward Apple is not limited to the United States in the first step of the company’s placing more policy pressure on Apple this year, Meta proposes complain In late January, the competition regulator with Brazil, the Economic Defense Administrative Committee against iPhone manufacturers.

In the complaint, Mehta claims Apple’s iOS update unfairly picked out third-party apps, but not their own. Meta has been considering an antitrust complaint against Brazilian Apple since last year, a source familiar with the matter said.

Apple and X did not respond to requests for comment.

Kaplan takes over The highest policy position of the Yuan Former UK Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said in January that he would resign after seven years at the company.

Other notable Republicans at META include Kevin Martin, vice president of global public policy, and Jennifer Newsted, former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission and chief legal officer for George W. Bush. Newstead, Trump has been appointed legal counsel to the state department.

Several sources said Kaplan’s rise in Meta combined with company policy changes consolidated a political shift.

People say that since joining META as Vice President of Policy in 2011, Kaplan has built an executive reputation, even if it means feeling uneasy internally, even if it means making some people feel uneasy.

In 2018, Kaplan became the headline of Brett Kavanaugh’s highly controversial Supreme Court confirmation hearing. His appearance caused a lot of controversy, Meta was forced to address “The leadership team realized they had made mistakes in handling last week’s incident and we thank the staff for all feedback,” the matter said in a statement.

Kaplan might have been a problem at the time and is now seen as an advantage. People say this is because executives are seen as ally responsible for Republicans.

They say Clegg represents a more left-wing position. A person familiar with the matter said he supported Trump from Facebook’s platform after the January 6 Capitol riot, and Kaplan was obviously even more reluctant to do so. The person said Kaplan also favors a less stringent content review policy.

January dollar agreed to pay $25 million as settlement With Trump’s decision to suspend his account following a congressional riot. January 2023, Yuan explain It is reinstating Trump on its platform after a two-year suspension.

The company’s efforts to win Trump seem to be working, at least based on what the president said publicly.

After Kaplan Announce Meta seemed impressed by the main content adjustments and related policy changes in Fox and Friends in early January.

“Honestly, I think they’ve come a long way. Yuan, Facebook, I think they’ve come a long way.” About Kat “This guy made a deep impression,” said Trump.

– CNBC’s Salvador Rodriguez contributed to the report.

watch: Zuckerberg said that Zuckerberg felt he was no longer criticizing.