Meta employees grill Mark Zuckerberg over executive bonuses amid layoffs

Meta employees demanded that CEO Mark Zuckerberg explain why top executives at Facebook’s parent company were given bonuses while thousands of their colleagues were being laid off, according to a report.

“Why did the entire executive team get EE/GE ratings when they are also directly responsible for the choices that led to us needing to lay off 20+% of the company?” a frustrated employee asked his boss during a town hall meeting convened by “the Zuck” on Thursday.

“Where is the accountability?” the employee demanded to know. The news of the town hall was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

In the parlance of employee evaluations and performance reviews, “EE” stands for “exceeds expectations” while “GE” connotes “greatly exceeds expectations.”

Executives who are deemed to have exceeded expectations are generally given bonuses.

Zuckerberg reportedly replied that he was pleased with how his top managers performed in their newly expanded roles.

The Meta boss told his employees that the company will slow down hiring and that onboarding of new employees will not be done as quickly as they were before the first round of layoffs were announced late last year.

Zuckerberg said that this week’s layoffs affected 4,000 employees across the company’s tech divisions, including its social media units — Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp — as well as its virtual reality department.

North America-based employees were reportedly told to work from home for the day as management began dispersing the layoff notices.

Demoralized employees took to social media where they posted images of their work badges as well as downed whiskey bottles.

Meta last year announced plans to reduce its global headcount by some 21,000 employees — or around a quarter of the total workforce.

Before the layoffs were announced, the company’s payroll numbered 87,000 people worldwide.

Zuckerberg told employees on Thursday that Meta will grow its workforce at the most by just 1% to 2% year over year.

“I just kind of think that for where we are in the efficiency that we’re able to get from new technologies, that’s probably the right model to expect going forward and that will be a different operating model and I think we can do it well,” Zuckerberg said.

The Facebook co-founder also left open the possibility that the company could lay off additional workers.

Zuckerberg said that while he expects to complete most of the layoffs for 2023 next month, he could not foresee what would happen beyond this year.

“I generally feel good about the position here, but just given the volatility, I don’t want to kind of promise that there won’t be future things in the future,” he said.

“What I can say is that there’s nothing that we’re planning now, and if we do something, it’ll be sort of on that time frame.”

Zuckerberg acknowledged that the latest round of layoffs that was implemented this week was “always going to be the most difficult and controversial one.”

“I wanted to front-load it as early in the year as possible,” Zuckerberg said.

“It took a few months of planning to execute. We wanted to get the most painful thing out of the way first, and that’s this.”

Another employee bluntly asked Zuckerberg: “You’ve shattered the morale and confidence in leadership of many high performers who work with intensity. Why should we stay at Meta?”

Zuckerberg replied that employees should remain because they buy into the company’s vision.

“There’s no other company in the world that delivers social experiences at the scale that we are and that does so across such a diversity of different products and use cases,” Zuckerberg said.

“So if you want to reach people in the billions and have a massive impact, I think this is a great place to be.”

The Post has sought comment from Meta.

A spokesperson for the company told The Journal: “We remain focused on advancing our industry-leading integrity efforts and continue to invest in teams and technologies to protect our community.”

Additional Reporting by Thomas Barrabi