We're witnessing a new Mark Zuckerberg. Welcome to Zuck 3.0.
Meta announced big changes to kick off the year, ending third-party fact-checking and DEI programs.
The moves illustrate the latest evolution in Mark Zuckerberg's leadership.
You might call it Zuckerberg 3.0 — and it comes as Donald Trump takes power.
Mark Zuckerberg has shown himself to be the ultimate Silicon Valley shape-shifter, and in the first couple of weeks of 2025, we got our best look yet at the latest version of the Meta CEO.
To kick off the new year, Zuckerberg made some big changes at his company, including ditching third-party fact-checking and slashing diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
He appears to be remaking Meta, which did not respond to a request for comment, at least partly in the image of Donald Trump and Elon Musk. And he doesn't seem too concerned about the backlash he's facing in some quarters, including from the same people who villainized him during the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the 2016 election and even his own Meta employees — many of whom have reacted negatively to his decision to roll back DEI efforts.
His recent moves hint that he's entering a new era, one in which his leadership increasingly reflects Trump's tastes. You might call it Zuckerberg 3.0.
Zuckerberg's transformation
For years, Zuckerberg was known as an almost robotic presence in Silicon Valley. Some people criticized him for copying ideas rather than innovating, and others held on to his image as a wunderkind wearing hoodies or too much sunscreen.
By the end of 2023, though, the Meta CEO had undergone a substantial makeover and was garnering praise in business and cultural circles.
Zuck got jacked and was winning jiu-jitsu competitions. He went on popular podcasts, like Joe Rogan's, to discuss his workouts and make fun of himself.
As a business leader, he acted as the adult in the room and led Meta's "year of efficiency," which turned the company's stock around.
In 2024, he continued his transformation: He ditched his jeans-and-hoodie uniform for designer T-shirts and gold chains. And his adoration for his wife, Priscilla Chan — as evidenced through gifts including a statue of her, a custom Porsche minivan, and his very own version of "Get Low" — won him fans.
His newfound swagger grew into a new kind of boldness.
In the fall, he said his biggest regret in his two decades of running Meta was taking responsibility and apologizing for problems that he believed weren't Meta's fault.
Zuck's next era comes as Trump takes power
Cut to 2025. Zuckerberg now appears to embrace some of the "anti-woke" ideas favored by some political billionaires, including Musk, Peter Thiel, and, of course, Trump.
While Zuckerberg didn't endorse Trump — or Vice President Kamala Harris — in the 2024 election, he and other tech CEOs were quick to congratulate Trump on his victory. Zuck met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago weeks after the election and, through Meta, donated $1 million to his inaugural committee.
Now he's taking what he calls "masculine energy" and putting it into action at Meta.
"Masculine energy, I think, is good, and obviously society has plenty of that, but I think that corporate culture was really trying to get away from it," he said in an interview on the "Joe Rogan Experience" podcast episode that aired Friday. "It's like you want feminine energy; you want masculine energy."
He added: "But I do think the corporate culture sort of had swung toward being this somewhat more neutered thing."
He started the new year by putting Dana White, the UFC CEO and Trump's longtime ally, on Meta's board and replacing the company's liberal head of policy, Nick Clegg, with the former GOP lobbyist Joel Kaplan.
Then he ended third-party fact-checking on Meta platforms, which some conservatives have criticized, in favor of a more hands-off approach. Like X, Meta is now set to use "community notes" to allow users to police each other.
"The recent elections feel like a cultural tipping point towards, once again, prioritizing speech," Zuckerberg said while announcing the changes, implying that the choice was, at least in part, a response to the political landscape.
And Meta's chief marketing officer, Alex Schultz, told Business Insider that Trump's election influenced the policy change.
The decision has come under scrutiny, with some saying the lack of content moderation would open the door to hate speech.
Under the policy, for example, Meta users can say that members of LGBTQ+ communities are mentally ill for being gay or transgender.
Dozens of fact-checking organizations have signed a letter calling it "a step backward for those who want to see an internet that prioritizes accurate and trustworthy information."
Still, others, including Musk and Trump, have lauded the change.
"Honestly, I think they have come a long way, Meta, Facebook," the president-elect said Tuesday.
In his recent Rogan interview, Zuckerberg said that while some may see the timing of the content changes as "purely a political thing," he had been thinking about them for a while.
"I feel like I just have a much greater command now of what I think the policy should be, and, like, this is how it's going to be going forward," he said.
Zuckerberg's recent decision to cut Meta's DEI initiatives could also placate conservatives, who have criticized such policies.
While Trump has not commented on the decision, he has criticized DEI policies in the past.
On Friday, Meta's vice president of human resources, Janelle Gale, said in an internal memo that the company would no longer have a team focused on DEI or consider diversity in hiring or supplier decisions.
"The legal and policy landscape surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the United States is changing," she said in a memo.
The decision sparked backlash. Internally, nearly 400 employees reacted with a teary-eyed emoji to the announcement; one called it "disappointing," and another said it was a "step backward," BI reported Friday.
"Wow, we really capitulated on a lot of our supposed values this week," another employee said in a comment, seemingly referring to the DEI and fact-checking moves.
Others, though, did seem to support the move: 139 employees "liked" the post, and 57 responded with a heart emoji.
Read the original article on Business Insider