- Meta announced big changes to kick off the new year, including ending third-party fact-checking and DEI programs.
- The moves illustrate the latest evolution in Mark Zuckerberg’s leadership.
- You might call it Zuckerberg 3.0 — and it comes as Donald Trump takes power.
Mark Zuckerberg has shown himself to be the ultimate Silicon Valley shapeshifter, and in the first couple weeks of 2025, we got our best look yet at the latest version of the Meta CEO.
To kick off the new year, Zuckerberg made some big changes at his company, including ditching third-party fact-checking and slashing DEI initiatives.
He appears to be remaking Meta, which did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, at least partly in the image of Donald Trump and Elon Musk. And he doesn’t seem too concerned about the backlash he’s facing in some quarters, including from the same people who villainized him during the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the 2016 election, or even his own Meta employees — many of whom have reacted negatively to his latest decision to roll back DEI efforts.
His recent moves hint that he’s entering a new era, one in which his leadership increasingly reflects Trump’s tastes.
Zuckerberg’s transformation
For years, Zuckerberg was known as an almost robotic presence in Silicon Valley. Some people criticized him for copying ideas rather than innovating, and others held onto his image as a wunderkind wearing hoodies or too much sunscreen.
By the end of 2023, though, the Meta CEO had undergone a substantial makeover and was garnering praise in business and cultural circles.
Zuck got shredded and was winning jiu-jitsu competitions. He went on popular podcasts, like Joe Rogan’s, to discuss his workouts and make fun of himself.
As a business leader, he acted as the adult in the room and led Meta’s “year of efficiency,” which turned the company’s stock around.
In 2024, he continued his transformation: He ditched his uniform jeans and hoodie uniform for designer T-shirts and gold chains. And his adoration for his wife Priscilla Chan — as evidenced through gifts like a statue of her, a custom Porsche minivan, and his very own version of “Get Low” — won him fans.
His newfound swagger grew into a new kind of boldness.
In the fall of last year, he said his biggest regret in his two decades of running Meta was taking responsibility and apologizing for problems that he believed weren’t Meta’s fault.
Zuck’s next era comes as Trump takes power
Cut to 2025. Zuckerberg now appears to embrace some of the “anti-woke” ideas favored by some political billionaires like Musk, Peter Thiel, and, of course, Trump.
While Zuckerberg didn’t endorse Trump — or Harris — in the 2024 election, he and other tech CEOs were quick to congratulate Trump on his victory. Zuck met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago weeks after the election and, through Meta, donated $1 million to his inaugural committee.
Now, he’s taking what he calls “masculine energy” and putting it into action at Meta.
“Masculine energy, I think, is good, and obviously society has plenty of that, but I think that corporate culture was really trying to get away from it,” he said in an interview on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast that aired on Friday. “It’s like you want feminine energy, you want masculine energy.”
“But I do think the corporate culture sort of had swung toward being this somewhat more neutered thing,” he added.
He started the new year by putting Dana White, the UFC CEO and Trump’s longtime ally, on Meta’s board and replacing the company’s head of policy, liberal Nick Clegg, with former GOP lobbyist Joel Kaplan.
Sean M. Haffey
Then, he ended third-party fact-checking on Meta platforms, which some conservatives have criticized, in favor of a more hands-off approach. Like X, Meta will now use “community notes” to allow users to police each other.
“The recent elections feel like a cultural tipping point towards, once again, prioritizing speech,” Zuckerberg said while announcing the changes, implying that the choice was, at least in part, a response to the political landscape.
Meta’s CMO, Alex Schultz, also told BI that Trump’s election influenced the policy change.
The decision has come under scrutiny, with some saying the lack of content moderation opens the door to hate speech.
Under the policy, Meta users can say that members of the LGBTQ+ community are mentally ill for being gay or transgender, for example.
Dozens of fact-checking organizations have signed a letter calling it “a step backward for those who want to see an internet that prioritizes accurate and trustworthy information.”
Still, others, including Musk and Trump, lauded the change.
“Honestly, I think they have come a long way, Meta, Facebook,” the president-elect said on Tuesday.
In the recent Rogan interview, Zuckerberg said while some may see the timing of the content changes as “purely a political thing,” it’s something he has been thinking about for a while.
“I feel like I just have a much greater command now of what I think the policy should be and like, this is how it’s going to be going forward,” Zuckerberg said.
Zuckerberg’s recent decision to cut Meta’s DEI initiatives could also placate conservatives, who have criticized such policies.
While Trump has not commented on the DEI decision, he has criticized DEI policies in the past.
On Friday, Meta’s vice president of human resources, Janelle Gale, said in an internal memo that the company would no longer have a team focused on DEI or consider diversity in hiring or supplier decisions.
“The legal and policy landscape surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the United States is changing,” she said in a memo.
The decision sparked a backlash among some. Internally, nearly 400 employees reacted with a teary-eyed emoji to the announcement; one called it “disappointing,” and another said it was a “step backward,” BI reported on Friday.
“Wow, we really capitulated on a lot of our supposed values this week,” another employee commented, seemingly referring to both the DEI and fact-checking moves.
Others, though, did seem to support the move: 139 employees “liked” the post, and 57 responded with a heart emoji.
