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Priscilla Chan, left, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Lauren Sanchez are among guests attending Donald Trump’s inauguration as the 47th U.S. president in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington, D.C., Jan. 20, 2025.

Saul Loeb | Afp | Getty Images

Mark Zuckerberg kicked off 2025 with an Instagram video that outlined his vision for what he called restoring “free expression” to Meta‘s platforms and for working with President Donald Trump to push back on governments Zuckerberg said have gone after American companies and stifled innovation. 

What Zuckerberg didn’t say in his five-minute monologue was that Meta would use its own internal moderators to censor employee criticism of his plan. He also didn’t say that by cozying up to the new president, his company might be able to shift Trump’s ire in the direction of Meta’s loathed rival Apple.

For Meta’s staff of almost 75,000 people, the singular power of its 40-year-old founder and CEO is more evident than ever in the company’s rightward shift since Trump’s election victory in November and inauguration in January.

On Feb. 6, Zuckerberg visited the White House in order “to discuss how Meta can help the administration defend and advance American tech leadership abroad,” Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said in a post on X.

Based on interviews with over a dozen current and former employees who asked not to be named in order to speak candidly on what they see happening inside the company, there’s a profound sense of uncertainty as to how Meta’s culture will change in the coming years of Trump’s second presidency.

At headquarters in Silicon Valley, tensions are palpable as Meta goes through its latest round of job cuts. In January, the company announced plans to lay off its lowest performers, or 5% of its overall workforce, and began the cuts this week.

Meta has been trying to thwart pushback from employees by censoring criticism within its Workplace in-house social network, people familiar with the matter said. Employees who left comments that management viewed as negative on Workplace were told that their statements would be used in performance reviews, potentially affecting their employment, they said. 

Sources also told CNBC that employees who might otherwise leave because of their disillusionment with policy changes are concerned about quitting now because of how they will be perceived by future employers given that Meta has said publicly that it’s weeding out “low performers.”

Chart Master: Meta vs. the rest of the Magnificent 7

Meta, like many of its tech peers, began downsizing in 2022 and has continued to trim around the edges. The company cut 21,000 jobs, or nearly a quarter of its workforce, in 2022 and 2023. Among those who lost their jobs were members of the civic integrity group, which was known to be outspoken in its criticism of Zuckerberg’s leadership. 

Some big changes are now taking place that appear to directly follow the lead of Trump at the expense of company employees and users of the platforms, the people familiar with the matter said.

Most notably, Meta recently ended its diversity, equity and inclusion program and relaxed content-moderation guidelines, both areas that Trump has attacked in his war on “woke policies.”

When Meta filed its annual report with the Securities and Exchange Commission in late January, the document noted its drastic shifts, listing them in the section about business risks.

“In January 2025, we announced certain changes to our content policies and enforcement efforts to further free expression on our platform and mitigate over-enforcement of certain of our content policies,” Meta said. “If we are not able to maintain and enhance our brands, our ability to maintain or expand our base of users, marketers, and developers may be impaired, and our business and financial results may be harmed.”

Meta declined to comment.

Taking aim at Apple

Zuckerberg is willing to take on such risks because of the potential benefits that come with smoothing his relationship with Trump, the people familiar with the matter said. In contrast to Meta’s previous strategy of advocating for an even playing field across the tech industry, Zuckerberg now sees opportunities to gain a strategic advantage for his company, the people said.

One major concern for Zuckerberg is Elon Musk’s central position in the Trump administration, where he’s focused on slashing regulations. Meta competes with Musk’s X and is also investing heavily in artificial intelligence, an area of particular interest to Musk and his startup xAI. Musk’s role in the White House could put Meta at a disadvantage when it comes to policies surrounding AI.

But more than AI and Musk, Zuckerberg is looking for a leg up on Apple, the people said.

Apple CEO Tim Cook, center left, attends Apple’s iPhone 16 launch in New York City, Sept. 20, 2024.

Timothy A. Clary | Afp | Getty Images

Zuckerberg hopes that Meta’s improved relationship with the White House could help put pressure on the iPhone maker, after a yearslong battle between the two tech heavyweights. Both companies were targets of antitrust suits from the U.S. government.

The Meta founder is still upset about Apple’s 2021 iOS privacy update, which made it harder for Meta to track users across the internet and which put a $10 billion dent in the company’s 2022 advertising revenue. Internally, this period has come to be known among some Meta employees as “the Tim Cook recession.” 

Many app developers, including Spotify and Epic Games, have battled Apple either in public or in court over the company’s app store rules and control over its ecosystem. Zuckerberg has been one of the loudest critics of Apple in the past, but he has become even more antagonistic toward the company in recent public interviews. Sources told CNBC that it’s all part of an effort to shift antitrust scrutiny off Meta and onto Apple.

In a January interview with podcast host Joe Rogan, Zuckerberg claimed that Apple is becoming less innovative and that it’s putting resources toward preventing third parties from creating hardware peripherals that integrate smoothly into Apple’s mobile operating system.

“They build stuff like Air Pods, which are cool, but they’ve just thoroughly hamstrung the ability for anyone else to build something that can connect to the iPhone in the same way,” Zuckerberg said.

Meta’s business has recovered from its downdraft that followed the iOS changes, due mostly to the company’s investments in AI and the new capabilities they’ve provided to advertisers. In January, the company reported $160.6 billion in advertising revenue for 2024, up nearly 40% from 2021. The company’s shares have been on a huge upswing since a brutal 2022, quadrupling over the past two years and closing at a record $728.56 on Thursday.

Zuckerberg told Rogan that Meta’s profit would double if Apple stopped applying “random rules” that tax his company. 

Meta’s actions against Apple aren’t limited to the U.S. In one of the company’s first steps this year to apply more policy pressure on Apple, Meta filed a complaint against the iPhone maker in late January with Brazil’s competition regulator, the Administrative Council for Economic Defense.

In the complaint, Meta alleged that Apple’s iOS update unfairly singles out third-party apps but not its own. Meta has been considering an antitrust complaint against Apple in Brazil since last year, a source familiar with the matter said.

Apple and X did not respond to requests for comment.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, right, and Joel Kaplan, the company’s vice president of global public policy, leave the Elysee Palace in Paris after a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, May 23, 2018.

Aurelien Morissard | IP3 | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Not afraid to ruffle some feathers

Leading Meta’s new policy charge is Joel Kaplan, a former White House deputy chief of staff under former President George W. Bush with longstanding ties to the Republican Party. 

Kaplan took over Meta’s top policy position from Nick Clegg, a former U.K. deputy prime minister, who said in January that he would step down after seven years at the company.

Other notable Republicans at Meta include Vice President of Global Public Policy Kevin Martin, a former Federal Communications Commission chairman under President George W. Bush, and Chief Legal Officer Jennifer Newstead, whom Trump previously appointed as a legal advisor at the State Department.

Kaplan’s ascendency at Meta coupled with the company’s policy changes has solidified a political shift to the right, multiple sources said.

Since joining Meta in 2011 as a policy vice president, Kaplan has built a reputation as an executive who takes calculated risks even if it means upsetting some people internally, the people said.

In 2018, Kaplan made headlines for attending Brett Kavanaugh’s highly contentious Supreme Court confirmation hearing as a personal friend. His appearance caused so much controversy that Meta was forced to address the matter in a statement, saying the “leadership team recognizes that they’ve made mistakes handling the events of the last week and we’re grateful for all the feedback from our employees.”

What may have been a problem for Kaplan at the time is now viewed as a strength. That’s because the executive is seen as an ally to the Republicans in charge, the people said.

Clegg, by contrast, represented a more center-left position, they said. He was vocal in his support of banning Trump from Facebook’s platform after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, while Kaplan was noticeably more reluctant about such a move, a person familiar with the matter said. Kaplan has also favored less strict content moderation policies, the person said.

Meta in January agreed to pay $25 million as part of a settlement with Trump over the company’s decision to suspend his accounts following the Capitol riot. In January 2023, Meta said it was reinstating Trump on its platform after the two-year suspension.

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

After Kaplan announced Meta’s major content-moderation and related policy shifts in early January on “Fox and Friends,” Trump appeared to be impressed.

“Honestly, I think they’ve come a long way. Meta, Facebook, I think they’ve come a long way,” Trump told reporters during a Jan. 7 press conference. About Kaplan, Trump said, “The man was very impressive.”

 CNBC’s Salvador Rodriguez contributed to this report.

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Trump Media reports $400 million in 2024 losses

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Trump Media reports 0 million in 2024 losses

U.S. President Donald Trump signs an executive order establishing the Energy Dominance Council led by Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum in the Oval Office at the White House on February 14, 2025 in Washington, DC. President Trump signed a second executive order withholding federal funding from schools and universities that impose a COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

Andrew Harnik | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Trump Media & Technology Group shares were down about 1% in extended trading on Friday after the operator of Truth Social released its 2024 results.

Here’s how the company performed:

  • Earnings: Loss of $2.36 per share
  • Revenue: $3.6 million

The company’s revenue declined 12% year over year, according to its annual report. The company saw its net loss widen to $400.9 million from $58.2 million in 2023.

Trump Media debuted on Nasdaq under the ticker “DJT” last March, completing its merger with Digital World Acquisition Corp. The stock nearly doubled in value in 2024, with its namesake, Donald Trump, winning the U.S. presidential election in November. As of Friday’s close, the stock was down about 11% year to date giving it a market capitalization of $6.59 billion.

In 2024, Trump Media incurred merger-related legal fees because of obstruction from former President Biden’s Securities and Exchange Commission, according to a statement. A change to a revenue-sharing agreement with an advertising partner resulted in lower sales. “Additionally, revenue has varied as we selectively test a nascent advertising initiative on our Truth Social platform,” the company said in the annual report.

Unlike Meta and other social media companies, Trump Media management said in the filing they do not believe in using traditional metrics such as the number of active users or average revenue per user. Doing so “could potentially divert its focus from strategic evaluation with respect to the progress and growth of its business,” according to the filing.

In the fourth quarter, Trump Media announced the availability of its Truth+ video streaming service on Android, iOS and the web.

The company has not held an earnings call since the merger.

As of Friday, a trust where President Trump is the sole beneficiary owns 52% of the voting power of the company’s stock, the filing states.

Trump publishes posts on Truth Social, where he has 8.9 million followers. On X, owned by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who has been helping with the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, Trump has 100.9 million followers.

Trump Media now has $776.8 million in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments, with $9.6 million in debt.

“We will continue to explore opportunities to partner, merge with, and acquire other entities that are able to function effectively if TMTG evolves into a holding company with subsidiaries spanning several industries,” Chairman and CEO Devin Nunes, a former Republican Congressman was quoted as saying in the statement.

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Dell shares pop on report of $5 billion deal for AI servers for Elon Musk’s xAI

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Dell shares pop on report of  billion deal for AI servers for Elon Musk's xAI

Chief Executive Officer of SpaceX and Tesla and owner of Twitter, Elon Musk attends the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at the Porte de Versailles exhibition centre on June 16, 2023 in Paris, France.

Chesnot | Getty Images

Dell shares rose 4% on Friday following a report from Bloomberg that Elon Musk’s startup xAI was preparing an agreement to buy $5 billion in artificial intelligence servers from the hardware maker.

The equipment containing Nvidia‘s GB200 graphics processing units (GPUs) would be delivered this year, according to Bloomberg, which cited unnamed sources.

Many data center gear manufacturers have been seeing growth from selling boxes for training and running AI models. Dell said in November that it had $3.6 billion in quarterly AI server order demand. Dell’s total revenue for the latest quarter totaled $24.37 billion, up 10% year over year.

In December, xAI announced a $6 billion funding round. CNBC reported that the Musk startup, which competes with OpenAI, was raising the money to purchase GPUs. The Grok assistant from xAI is available for people to use on X, which is also owned by Musk.

Musk has been building out xAI’s facility in Memphis, Tennessee.

Dell declined to comment. xAI didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Read the full Bloomberg report here.

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Amazon ‘anti-union propaganda,’ employee surveillance loom over labor vote at North Carolina warehouse

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Amazon 'anti-union propaganda,' employee surveillance loom over labor vote at North Carolina warehouse

Workers picket in front of an Amazon Logistic Station on December 19, 2024 in Skokie Illinois.

Scott Olson | Getty Images

Italo Medelius-Marsano was a law student at North Carolina Central University in 2022, when he took a job at an Amazon warehouse near the city of Raleigh to earn some extra cash.

The past month has been unlike any other during his three-year tenure at the company. Now, when he shows up for his shift at the shipping dock, Medelius-Marsano says he’s met with flyers and mounted TVs urging him to “vote no,” as well as QR codes on workstations that lead to an anti-union website. During meetings, managers discourage unionization.

The facility in the suburb of Garner, North Carolina, employs roughly 4,700 workers and is the site of Amazon’s latest labor showdown. Workers at the site are voting this week on whether to join Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity (CAUSE), a grassroots union made up of current and former employees.

CAUSE organizers started the group in 2022 in an effort to boost wages and improve working conditions. Voting at the site, known as RDU1, wraps up on Saturday.

Workers at RDU1 and other facilities told CNBC that Amazon is increasingly using digital tools to deter employees from unionizing. That includes messaging through the company’s app and workstation computers. There’s also automated software and handheld package scanners used to track employee performance inside the warehouse, so the company knows when staffers are working or doing something else.

“You cannot get away from the anti-union propaganda or being surveilled, because when you walk into work they have cameras all over the building,” said Medelius-Marsano, who is an organizer with CAUSE. “You can’t get into work without scanning a badge or logging into a machine. That’s how they track you.”

CAUSE representatives have also made their pitch to RDU1 employees. The union has set up a “CAUSE HQ” tent across the street from the warehouse and disbursed leaflets in the facility’s break room.

I'd buy Amazon over Meta, says Hightower's Stephanie Link

Amazon, the nation’s second-largest private employer, has long sought to keep unions out of its ranks. The strategy succeeded in the U.S. until 2022, when workers at a Staten Island warehouse voted to join the Amazon Labor Union. Last month, workers at a Whole Foods store in Philadelphia voted to join the United Food and Commercial Workers union.

In December, Amazon delivery and warehouse workers at nine facilities went on strike, organized by the Teamsters, during the height of the holiday shopping season to push the company to the bargaining table. The strike ended on Christmas Eve.

Union elections at other Amazon warehouses in New York have finished in defeat in recent years, while the results of a union drive at an Alabama facility are being contested. Organizers have pointed to Amazon’s near-constant monitoring of employees as both a catalyst and a deterrent of union campaigns.

The NLRB has 343 open or settled unfair labor practice charges filed with the agency against Amazon, its subsidiaries and contracted delivery companies in the U.S., a spokesperson said. 

Amazon has argued in legal filings that the NLRB, which issues complaints against companies or unions determined to have violated labor law, is unconstitutional. Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Starbucks and Trader Joe’s have also made similar claims that challenge the agency’s authority.

Amazon spokeswoman Eileen Hards said the company’s employees can choose whether or not to join a union.

“We believe that both decisions should be equally protected which is why we talk openly, candidly and respectfully about these topics, actively sharing facts with employees so they can use that information to make an informed decision,” Hards said in a statement.

Hards said the company doesn’t retaliate against employees for union activities, and called claims that its employee monitoring discourages them from unionizing “odd.”

“The site is operating, so employees are still expected to perform their usual work,” Hards said in a statement. “Further, the camera technology in our facilities isn’t to surveil employees — it’s to help guide the flow of goods through the facilities and ensure security and safety of both employees and inventory.”

Orin Starn, a CAUSE organizer who was fired by Amazon early last year for violating the company’s drug and alcohol policy, called Amazon’s employee tracking “algorithmic management of labor.” Starn is an anthropology professor at Duke University who began working undercover at RDU1 in 2023 to conduct research for a book on Amazon.

“Where 100 years ago in a factory you would’ve had a supervisor come around to tell you if you’re slacking off, now in a modern warehouse like Amazon, you’re tracked digitally through a scanner,” Starn said.

‘Just the algorithm’

John Logan, a professor and director of labor and employment studies at San Francisco State University, told CNBC in an email that Amazon has “perfected the weaponization” of technology, workplace surveillance and algorithmic management during anti-union campaigns “more than any other company.”

While Amazon may be more sophisticated than others, “the use of data analytics is becoming far more common in anti-union campaigns across the country,” Logan said. He added that it’sextremely common” for companies to try to improve working conditions or sweeten employee perks during a union drive.

Other academics are paying equally close attention to the issue. In a research paper published last week, Northwestern University PhD candidate Teke Wiggin explored Amazon’s use of algorithms and digital devices at the company’s BHM1 warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama.

“The black box and lack of accountability that comes with algorithmic management makes it harder for a worker or activist to decide if they’re being retaliated against,” Wiggin said in an interview. “Maybe their schedule changes a little bit, work feels harder than it used to, the employer can say that has nothing to do with us, that’s just the algorithm. But we have no idea if the algorithm has changed.”

People protest in support of the unionizing efforts of the Alabama Amazon workers, in Los Angeles, California, March 22, 2021.

Lucy Nicholson | Reuters

Some Amazon employees see the situation differently. Storm Smith works at RDU1 as a process assistant, which involves monitoring worker productivity and safety. Amazon referred Smith to CNBC in the course of reporting this story.

Amazon’s workplace controls, like rate and time off task, are “part of the job,” Smith said. Staffers are “always welcome” to ask her what their rate is, she added.

“For my people, if I see your rate is not where it’s supposed to be, I’ll come up to you and say, ‘Hey, this is your rate, are you feeling alright? Is there anything I could get you to get your rate up? Like a snack, a drink, whatever,” Smith said.

Wiggin interviewed 42 BHM1 employees following the first election in 2021, and reviewed NLRB records of hearings. The facility employed more than 5,800 workers at the time of the union drive.

The NLRB last November ordered a third union vote to be held at BHM1 after finding Amazon improperly interfered in two previous elections. The company has denied wrongdoing.

Amazon staffers told Wiggin that during the union campaign, the company tweaked some performance expectations to “improve working conditions” and dissuade them from unionizing. One employee said these changes were partly why he voted against the union, according to the study.

Workers at an Amazon warehouse outside St. Louis, Missouri, filed an NLRB complaint in May. The employees accused Amazon of using “intrusive algorithms” that track when they’re working to discourage them from organizing, The Guardian reported. The employees withdrew their complaint on Tuesday.

Hards said Amazon doesn’t require employees to meet specific productivity speeds or targets.

Lawmakers zeroed in on how surveillance can impact organizing efforts in recent years. In 2022, the former NLRB general counsel issued a memo calling for the group to address corporate use of “omnipresent surveillance and other algorithmic-management tools” to disrupt organizing efforts. The following year, the Biden Administration put out a request for information on automated worker surveillance and management, noting that the systems can pose risks to employees, including “their rights to form or join a labor union.”

However, the Trump administration is attempting to purge the NLRB, with the president firing the chair of the organization on his first day in office last month. Trump has put Musk, a notorious opponent of unions, in charge of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, with the goal of cutting government costs and slashing regulations.

Fired by an app

Jennifer Bates, an Amazon.com, Inc. fulfillment center employee, stands for a portrait at the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) office in Birmingham, Alabama on March 26, 2021. 

Patrick T. Fallon | AFP | Getty Images

The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which sought to represent BHM1 workers, has said the AtoZ app can access a user’s GPS, photos, camera, microphone and WiFi-connection information. The union also claims that “Amazon can sell the data collected to any third party companies and that data cannot be deleted.” The technology raises several concerns, including that it may suppress “the right to organize,” RWDSU said.

Hards said the RWDSU’s claims are inaccurate and denied that the company sells any data affiliated with AtoZ use. She said AtoZ users must give the app permission to access things like their GPS location.

At the Garner facility, the AtoZ app has been plastered with “anti-union propaganda” since the RDU1 election was announced last month, Medelius-Marsano said.

One AtoZ message suggested employees’ benefits could be at risk if they voted in a union, while another described CAUSE as an “outside party” that’s “claiming to be a union.”

RDU1 site leader Kristen Tettemer said in another message that a group like CAUSE “can get in the way of how we work together,” and that “once in, a union is very difficult to remove.” Smith said Amazon’s response to the union drive has been centered around “putting out the facts and telling you to do your research.”

Medelius-Marsano said it all amounts to an environment of intimidation.

“There’s no doubt about it,” Medelius-Marsano said. “If we lose, fear is going to be the reason.”

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