Meta's Zuckerberg Addresses Leaks and AI Advancements in All-Hands Meeting

'Everything I Say Leaks,' Zuckerberg Says in Leaked Meeting Audio

"There are a bunch of things that I think are value-destroying for me to talk about, so I'm not going to talk about those." At an all hands meeting inside Meta Thursday, Mark Zuckerberg did not address Meta's $25 million settlement with Donald Trump that will see the company paying $22 million for the eventual establishment of the Trump Presidential Library. But Zuckerberg did say that he had to be increasingly careful about what he says internally at Meta because "everything I say leaks. And it sucks, right?" Meta made changes to the question-and-answer section of the company all hands meeting because of the leaks, Zuckerberg said, according to meeting audio obtained by 404 Media. "I want to be able to be able to talk about stuff openly, but I am also trying to like, well, we're trying to build stuff and create value in the world, not destroy value by talking about stuff that inevitably leaks," he said. So rather than take direct questions, the company used a "poll" system, where questions asked beforehand were voted on so that "main themes" of questions were addressed. "There are a bunch of things that I think are value-destroying for me to talk about, so I'm not going to talk about those. But I think it'll be good. You all can give us feedback later," he added. "Maybe it's just the nature of running a company at scale, but it's a little bit of a bummer." In the hour-long meeting, Zuckerberg repeated many things he has said publicly, such as the possibility of replacing software engineers with AI, the fact that he thinks open source AI will soon overtake closed-source AI, and the fact that he believes the company can now work more easily with the Trump administration that he has changed his platforms to align with. He said "we now have an opportunity to have a productive relationship with the United States government, and we're going to take that." He also addressed changes to the company's diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, but largely mirrored what he has already said publicly on podcasts like Joe Rogan. More of what Zuckerberg said on internal strife at the company was reported by Business Insider, which also obtained a copy of the meeting. Zuckerberg also spoke extensively about the rise of DeepSeek, which he said will not affect Meta as badly as it has affected the valuations of companies like OpenAI and Nvidia. This is because Meta does not sell access to its own open source large language model, Llama. "You know, we can not only observe what they did, but we can read about it and implement it. So that'll benefit us," he said. "We have, like, a model that's like, that's competitive with the best models out there, and we offer it for free. We're not charging $20 or $200 a month or whatever. It's just like right there, and it's free. But now I think that there might be an opportunity to do even more, right?" Zuckerberg also said that the company does not "have control over what's going to happen to TikTok," one of its biggest competitors. "I'm pretty sure whatever happens. Whatever happens, regardless of what happens to TikTok, I'm very confident that Facebook and Instagram reels are gonna continue growing ... we have a lot of competitors, but they're like, they're an important one."

'There Are Repercussions': Meta Reminds Staff of Its Strict No-Leaks Policy -- That Has Since Been Leaked to the Press

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg addressed the problem in an all-hands meeting on Thursday. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg held an all-hands meeting Thursday and his comments leaked to multiple outlets almost immediately. That led Meta's Chief Information Security Officer Guy Rosen to send staff an internal memo later that day reminding them that the company had recently fired staffers who leaked information and would continue to fight back against them. "We take leaks seriously and will take action," Rosen said in the memo to staff, which has since been leaked to The Verge. "When information is stolen or leaked, there are repercussions beyond the immediate security impact. Our teams become demoralized and we all waste time that is better spent working on our products and toward our goals and mission." Meta "recently terminated relationships with employees who leaked confidential company information" and will continue to "take appropriate action, including termination" if it finds out an employee spilled information, Rosen wrote. Here's what happened at the all-hands meeting leading to the memo on Thursday, according to reports: Zuckerberg led the meeting by saying that he wouldn't be as open as he had been at previous meetings, due to the leaks. Human resources also chimed in and told employees that they would skip questions that they'd expect "might be unproductive if they leak." "We try to be really open and then everything I say leaks," Zuckerberg reportedly said. "It sucks." At the meeting, Zuckerberg addressed Meta's upcoming layoffs, which will affect 5% of the company or about 3,600 employees on February 10. The cuts will be based on performance and affect employees who aren't meeting expectations. "The right thing to do is just rip the band-aid off," Zuckerberg said. "I think in a lot of ways it is a nicer thing to do for people who are probably not going to end up making it anyway." Related: Meta Is Laying Off More Than 3,000 as CEO Mark Zuckerberg Calls for 'Extensive Performance-Based Cuts' Zuckerberg also said that this year, Meta would use AI agents, or software that can carry out tasks autonomously, to write new code at the company. The comments echo what Zuckerberg told Joe Rogan earlier this month: Meta is working on AI this year that can function as well as a midlevel engineer. When asked at the all-hands meeting if this new AI could lead to layoffs, Zuckerberg did not confirm job cuts, stating that it was difficult to tell. He said that Meta is still going to need engineers, especially those who can use AI to be more productive. Zuckerberg additionally spoke about DeepSeek, the Chinese AI startup that created an open-source AI model on par with Meta's for less than $6 million. Meanwhile, Meta committed $60 billion to $65 billion this year on AI infrastructure investments. He said that he doesn't think DeepSeek changes how much Meta is spending on AI, but that it is "interesting when there's someone who does something better than you." "We can not only observe what they [DeepSeek] did, but we can read about it and implement it, so that'll benefit us," Zuckerberg said.