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Meta To Lay Off ‘Low Performers’ According to Internal Memo From Mark Zuckerberg

January 14, 2025

Nicholas Morine

In an internal memo posted to Meta’s internal Workforce forum on Jan. 14, company CEO Mark Zuckerberg outlined plans to lay off Meta’s “low performers,” as CNBC reported.

Such a move would represent a cut of about 5% of Meta’s current workforce, and Zuckerberg was fairly clear in his remarks as to the intention of trimming the company’s roster.

“I’ve decided to raise the bar on performance management and move out low performers faster. We typically manage out people who aren’t meeting expectations over the course of a year, but now we’re going to do more extensive performance-based cuts during this cycle, with the intention of back filling these roles in 2025,” Zuckerberg wrote.

“We won’t manage out everyone who didn’t meet expectations for the last period if we’re optimistic about their future performance, and for those we do let go, we’ll provide generous severance in line with what we provided with previous cuts,” he added.

U.S.-based employees will be notified of their layoff by Feb. 10, according to the memo, while internationally based workers may be informed at a later date.

Meta Layoffs Follow Mark Zuckerberg’s Remarks Concerning Removal of Fact Checkers

It’s certainly been a turbulent month for both Meta and its CEO.

On Jan. 7, Zuckerberg took to Facebook to share a video in which he outlined a plan to remove third-party fact checkers from Meta platforms, instead replacing these with a form of Community Notes similar to what exists on competing platform X.

“Fact checkers have been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they’ve created,” Zuckerberg said. “What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with different ideas, and it’s gone too far.”

Meta’s chief global affairs officer, Joel Kaplan, would describe the fact checking environment on Facebook as having been the subject of “mission creep” concerning politically charged topics, and suggested a move to Community Notes would be more indicative of the company’s commitment to free speech concerns.

Response to the news was divided, and largely drawn along ideological and political battle lines.

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