Zuckerberg names communication as ‘one area’ to improve as Meta guts workforce

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is not necessarily known for his remorse. 

That much was clear in a memo to staff Wednesday, hours after the company started laying off 8,000 employees worldwide. In the email first reported by the New York Times, Zuckerberg doubled down on Wednesday’s layoffs as a pivotal moment for the company as it looks to prioritize its place in the AI race and deliver “personal superintelligence” to the average consumer. 

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“But success isn’t a given,” Zuckerberg wrote. “AI is the most consequential technology of our lifetimes. The companies that lead the way will define the next generation.”

Though he said it was “sad to say goodbye” and he felt the “weight” of the loss, the billionaire Facebook founder wrote that “this is the most dynamic” he’s seen the industry and that he was confident in Meta’s next steps.

“We’ve always focused on putting power in people’s hands. This is how we believe progress is made in the world,” Zuckerberg wrote. “These values are what make us different, and they are why Meta has been successful.”

Zuckerberg lamented that he hasn’t always gotten the path correct, particularly in getting the balance right between providing stability and fiddling with internal bureaucracy. 

While he noted that the company did not expect to have additional “company-wide layoffs” in 2026, he left open the possibility for area-specific cuts. Dave Arnold, a spokesperson for Meta, declined to comment Wednesday, including in response to SFGATE’s question about potential layoffs this year. 

“I also want to acknowledge that we haven’t been as clear as we aspire to be in our communication,” Zuckerberg continued in the memo. “… That’s one area I want to make sure we improve.”

Discussions about a need to improve communication were mirrored in a staffwide meeting on April 30, per leaked audio published Tuesday by More Perfect Union. In the audio, Zuckerberg responds to a question about an internal program where its AI models are being trained on data collected from Meta employees. Employees recently circulated a petition opposing their work being used to train Meta’s models. The petition garnered over 1,500 employee signatures.

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Though he said the program wasn’t being used to track or evaluate employee performance, he noted that the lack of communication about the tech came down to protecting Meta’s AI development strategies in an increasingly competitive business sphere. SFGATE reached out to Meta to confirm the audio’s validity.

“We want to communicate as clearly as possible about what we’re doing while not having all of the details of things that we think are going to be strategically differentiating leak immediately to the competitors,” Zuckerberg reportedly said.

This is Meta’s third round of layoffs this year. In January, the company slashed more than 1,000 jobs, with at least 272 based in California. Two months later, the company announced more cuts, less than one day after unveiling a lucrative $1 billion incentive plan that could earn six executives up to $921 million in extra compensation. 

Wednesday’s massive gutting comes on the heels of two other major Bay Area tech layoffs in the past few weeks at Cloudflare and LinkedIn. The two companies had similar messaging for its staff — the cuts are necessary for the future of the companies. 

“We have a lot of work ahead, but what’s on the other side is going to be extraordinary,” Zuckerberg wrote.