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This photo illustration created on January 7, 2025, in Washington, DC, shows an image of Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, and an image of the Meta logo. 

Drew Angerer | Afp | Getty Images

Meta employees took to their internal forum on Tuesday, criticizing the company’s decision to end third-party fact-checking on its services two weeks before President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Company employees voiced their concern after Joel Kaplan, Meta’s new chief global affairs officer and former White House deputy chief of staff under former President George W. Bush, announced the content policy changes on Workplace, the in-house communications tool. 

“We’re optimistic that these changes help us return to that fundamental commitment to free expression,” Kaplan wrote in the post, which was reviewed by CNBC. 

The content policy announcement follows a string of decisions that appear targeted to appease the incoming administration. On Monday, Meta added new members to its board, including UFC CEO Dana White, a longtime friend of Trump, and the company confirmed last month that it was contributing $1 million to Trump’s inauguration.

Among the latest changes, Kaplan announced that Meta will scrap its fact-checking program and shift to a user-generated system like X’s Community Notes. Kaplan, who took over his new role last week, also said that Meta will lift restrictions on certain topics and focus its enforcement on illegal and high-severity violations while giving users “a more personalized approach to political content.”

One worker wrote they were “extremely concerned” about the decision, saying it appears Meta is “sending a bigger, stronger message to people that facts no longer matter, and conflating that with a victory for free speech.”

Another employee commented that by “simply absolving ourselves from the duty to at least try to create a safe and respective platform is a really sad direction to take.” Other comments expressed concern about the impact the policy change could have on the discourse around topics like immigration, gender identity and gender, which, according to one employee, could result in an “influx of racist and transphobic content.”

A separate employee said they were scared that “we’re entering into really dangerous territory by paving the way for the further spread of misinformation.”

The changes weren’t universally criticized, as some Meta workers congratulated the company’s decision to end third-party fact checking. One wrote that X’s Community Notes feature has “proven to be a much better representation of the ground truth.” 

Another employee commented that the company should “provide an accounting of the worst outcomes of the early years” that necessitated the creation of a third-party fact-checking program and whether the new policies would prevent the same type of fall out from happening again.

As part of the company’s massive layoffs in 2023, Meta also scrapped an internal fact-checking project, CNBC reported. That project would have let third-party fact checkers like the Associated Press and Reuters, in addition to credible experts, comment on flagged articles in order to verify the content.

Although Meta announced the end of its fact-checking program on Tuesday, the company had already been pulling it back. In September, a spokesperson for the AP told CNBC that the news agency’s “fact-checking agreement with Meta ended back in January” 2024. 

Dana White, CEO of the Ultimate Fighting Championship gestures as he speaks during a rally for Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden, in New York, U.S., Oct. 27, 2024.

Andrew Kelly | Reuters

After the announcement of White’s addition to the board on Monday, employees also posted criticism, questions and jokes on Workplace, according to posts reviewed by CNBC.

White, who has led UFC since 2001, became embroiled in controversy in 2023 after a video published by TMZ showed him slapping his wife at a New Year’s Eve party in Mexico. White issued a public apology, and his wife, Anne White, issued a statement to TMZ, calling it an isolated incident.

Commenters on Workplace made jokes asking whether performance reviews would now involve mixed martial arts style fights.

In addition to White, John Elkann, the CEO of Italian auto holding company Exor, was named to Meta’s board.

Some employees asked what value autos and entertainment executives could bring to Meta, and whether White’s addition reflects the company’s values. One post suggested the new board appointments would help with political alliances that could be valuable but could also change the company culture in unintended or unwanted ways.

Comments in Workplace alluding to White’s personal history were flagged and removed from the discussion, according to posts from the internal app read by CNBC.

An employee who said he was with Meta’s Internal Community Relations team, posted a reminder to Workplace about the company’s “community engagement expectations” policy, or CEE, for using the platform.

“Multiple comments have been flagged by the community for review,” the employee posted. “It’s important that we maintain a respectful work environment where people can do their best work.” 

The internal community relations team member added that “insulting, criticizing, or antagonizing our colleagues or Board members is not aligned with the CEE.”

Several workers responded to that note saying that even respectful posts, if critical, had been removed, amounting to a corporate form of censorship.

One worker said that because critical comments were being removed, the person wanted to voice support for “women and all voices.”

Meta declined to comment.

— CNBC’s Salvador Rodriguez contributed to this report.

WATCH: Meta adds Dana White, John Elkann, and Charlie Songhurst to board of directors.

Meta adds Dana White, John Elkann, and Charlie Songhurst to board of directors

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Intel’s new CEO receives $66 million in options and stock grants on top of $1 million salary

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Intel's new CEO receives  million in options and stock grants on top of  million salary

Intel appoints Lip-Bu Tan as CEO.

Courtesy: Intel

New Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan will receive total compensation of $1 million in salary and about $66 million in stock options and grants vesting over the coming years, according to filing on Friday with the SEC.

Tan was named as the chief of Intel this week, spurring hopes that the chip industry veteran can turn around the struggling company. Intel shares are up nearly 20% so far in 2025, and most of those gains came this week, following Tan’s appointment. He starts next week.

Tan will receive $1 million in salary, and he is eligible for an annual bonus worth $2 million.

He will also receive stock units in a long-term equity grant valued at $14.4 million, as well as a performance grant of $17 million in Intel shares. Both grants will vest over a period of five years, although Tan won’t earn any of those shares if Intel’s stock price drops over the next three years. He can earn more stock if the company’s share price outperforms the market.

Tan will receive a package of stock options worth $9.6 million, as well as a new hire option grant worth $25 million.

In total, Tan’s compensation package has about $66 million in long-term equity awards and options in addition to salary, bonuses, and legal expenses. If Intel goes through a change of control, Tan could be eligible for accelerated vesting, according to the filing.

“Lip-Bu’s compensation reflects his experience and credentials as an accomplished technology leader with deep industry experience and is market competitive,” Intel said in an emailed comment. “The vast majority of his compensation is equity-based and tied to long-term shareholder value creation.”

Separately, Tan agreed to purchase $25 million in Intel shares and hold them in order to be eligible for the grants and bonuses.

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Jim Cramer talks impact of Intel's new CEO announcement

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Buy now, pay later lender Klarna files for U.S. IPO

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Buy now, pay later lender Klarna files for U.S. IPO

Pedestrians walk by an advertisement for Klarna.

Daniel Harvey Gonzalez | In Pictures via Getty Images

Klarna, a provider of buy now, pay later loans filed its IPO prospectus on Friday, and plans to go public on the New York Stock Exchange under ticker symbol KLAR.

Klarna, headquartered in Sweden, hasn’t yet disclosed the number of shares to be offered or the expected price range.

The decision to go public in the U.S. deals a significant blow to European stock exchanges, which have struggled to retain homegrown tech firms. Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski had hinted for years that a U.S. listing was more likely, citing better visibility and regulatory advantages.

Klarna is continuing to rebuild after a dramatic downturn. Once a pandemic-era darling valued at $46 billion in a SoftBank-led funding round, Klarna saw its valuation slashed by 85% in 2022, plummeting to $6.7 billion in its most recent primary fundraising. However, analysts now estimate the company’s valuation in the $15 billion range, bolstered by its return to profitability in 2023.

Revenue last year increased 24% to $2.8 billion. The company’s operating loss was $121 million for the year, and adjusted operating profit was $181 million, swinging from a loss of $49 million a year earlier.

Founded in 2005, Klarna is best known for its buy now, pay later model, a service that allows consumers to split purchases into installments. The company competes with Affirm, which went public in 2021, and Afterpay, which Block acquired for $29 billion in early 2022. Klarna’s major shareholders include venture firms Sequoia Capital and Atomico, as well as SoftBank’s Vision Fund.

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Shares of DocuSign surge 14% on strong earnings, AI boost

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Shares of DocuSign surge 14% on strong earnings, AI boost

DocuSign CEO Allan Thygesen on Q4 results, launch of DocuSign IAM and growth outlook

Docusign rose more than 14% after reporting stronger-than-expected earnings after the bell Thursday.

“We’ve really stabilized and I think started to turn the corner on the core business,” CEO Allan Thygesen said Friday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “We’ve become much more efficient.”

Here’s how the company performed in the fourth quarter FY2025 compared to LSEG estimates:

  • Earnings per share: 86 cents vs. 85 cents expected
  • Revenue: $776 million vs. $761 million

The earnings beat was boosted in part by the electronic signature service’s new artificial intelligence-enabled content called Docusign IAM, a platform for optimizing processes involving agreements.

“It’s tremendously valuable,” Thygesen said. “It’s opening a treasure trove of data. … We’re seeing excellent pickup.”

Looking to fiscal year 2026, Thygesen said Docusign expects IAM to account for low double digits of the total growth of the business by Q4.

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Thygesen said the company is also partnering with Microsoft and Google, which the company does not view as competitors because they’re “not looking to become agreement management specialists.”

Despite consumer sentiment and demand dipping across the board due to tariff uncertainty, Thygesen said the company has not seen anything yet in its transactional activity to indicate a slowdown in demand or growth.

“More and more people are going to want to sign things electronically,” Thygesen said.

The company reported subscription revenue at $757 million, marking a 9% year-over-year increase. Docusign said it expects first-quarter revenue between $745 million and $749 million and projects full-year revenue between $3.129 billion and $3.141 billion.

Docusign reported net income of $83.50 million, or 39 cents per share, compared to net income of $27.24 million, or 13 cents per share, a year ago. Fourth-quarter revenue of $776 million was up 9% from the year-ago quarter.

DocuSign went public in 2018 at a $6 billion valuation. The company’s share price soared during the pandemic as demand for remote services boomed during lockdowns and social restrictions, hitting record highs in 2021 before plummeting. Thygesen, who previously worked at Google, joined the company in September 2022 after DocuSign’s massive slide.

The stock is down more than 16% year-to-date.

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