It hasn't been lost on Meta (META) employees that their chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, is going through a true metamorphosis.
In recent weeks, employees say they've grown increasingly concerned and unhappy over their founder's public embrace of President Donald Trump, questioning whether the policy changes he has implemented at Meta will stain its reputation.
"King Donald is up there, and Mark is afraid of him," said a former Meta executive, who was among the half dozen insiders Yahoo Finance spoke with. "He's a chameleon bowing to the king."
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Case in point: Zuckerberg was front and center at Donald Trump's inauguration on Monday alongside several of his tech rivals. That evening he co-hosted a black-tie inaugural reception to celebrate Trump and Vice President JD Vance with political donors Miriam Adelson, Tilman Fertitta, and Todd Ricketts.
Employees, investors, and analysts all agree the stakes are now huge for Zuckerberg. Meta has had a bumpy few years after Apple's (AAPL) "ask app not to track" function limited its user data collection. Its stock shed 64% in 2022 as Big Tech companies came down to earth after pandemic highs. Its Reality Labs division, responsible for virtual reality and augmented reality, has lost more than $50 billion since 2020.
However, an AI-driven new boom in tech and Meta's rebound in profitability has the stock up 66% in the past year.
Yahoo Finance interviewed current and former Meta employees across several divisions within the company. They were granted anonymity due to fears of retribution.
Meta declined to comment for the story.
While Amazon's (AMZN) Jeff Bezos, Apple's Tim Cook, Uber's (UBER) Dara Khosrowshahi, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman all donated millions to Trump's inaugural fund, Zuckerberg went further to warm up to the incoming administration.
He has visited Mar-a-Lago twice since the election and reportedly gifted Trump a pair of Ray-Ban Meta glasses. Several insiders point out this isn't the first time Zuckerberg has reinvented himself and cozied up to the powers that be. In 2018, Zuckerberg apologized for Facebook's role in promoting fake news and hate speech.
Two sources say more changes are coming at Meta. Zuckerberg wants to be seen as someone who can work with Republicans, who now control the House and Senate. During the last two administrations, Zuckerberg had to testify before congressional committees eight times.
"We just have to accept the political realities of Zuck either having an adversarial relationship with the new administration or ... trying not to," a current employee said. "He's not running a platform that's friendly to Trump, so he's hedging his bets."
Zuckerberg's recent changes at Meta include axing third-party fact-checking in favor of community notes; ending its diversity, equity, and inclusion programs; and bringing back political content.
“We’re going to work with President Trump to push back on governments around the world going after American companies and pushing to censor more,” Zuckerberg said in a video message announcing Meta's plans to promote free speech.
Trump, who was banned from Meta platforms for two years in light of the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol, has previously called Zuckerberg a "criminal" and Facebook "an enemy of the people." Leading up to the 2024 election, Trump threatened Zuckerberg with a lifetime behind bars if he tried to rig the results.
Jared Kusner (C) and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg (L) attend Donald Trump’s inauguration in the rotunda of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 20, 2025. SHAWN THEW/Pool via REUTERS ·via REUTERS / Reuters
In a press conference earlier this month, Trump applauded Meta's policy shift, saying the company has "come a long way." When asked if Zuckerberg was making the changes due to Trump's past threats, the president said, "Probably."
The company also recently hired Trump loyalists. Longtime Trump ally and UFC CEO Dana White was appointed to Meta's board of directors. That hiring didn't sit well with many Meta employees. According to 404 Media, employees criticized his hiring on Meta's internal forum. The company then reportedly deleted the posts.
Joel Kaplan, a Republican operative who served as President George W. Bush's deputy chief of staff, replaced Nick Clegg as Meta's president of global affairs.
"It's really about business preservation," a current employee said. "He sees that Meta is vulnerable. People are raising their eyebrows, but certainly, no one on the inside can say anything. The internal fear is real."
Several of the people interviewed referred to Zuckerberg as pivoting to become "little Musk" — with his moves putting him in line with Tesla (TSLA) CEO and now Trump insider, Elon Musk. The two billionaires have had a rocky history dating back to 2017 when SpaceX failed to launch a $200 million Facebook satellite.
In 2018, Musk tweeted "What's Facebook?" and proceeded to delete the Facebook accounts of his companies. Fast-forward a few years, and Meta launched Threads, a direct competition to Musk's X.
In 2023, jujitsu-trained Zuckerberg accepted a cage match against Musk. Despite all the fanfare, a Musk vs. Zuckerberg showdown never happened.
"If you look at all the tech companies, Facebook has always been the most controversial one and you can see it in their stock price," said one former employee.
Many question whether Trump will truly accept Zuckerberg's friend request.
"Meta swung so far in the other direction by banning President Trump from the platform that [Zuckerberg] was probably the most liberal-leaning of all the Big Tech CEOs," Meta investor Dan Niles of Niles Investment Management told Yahoo Finance. "He has to try to get back more into the center."
Gene Munster, co-founder of Deepwater Asset Management, called Zuckerberg's about-face a "remarkable reversal," adding that Zuckerberg "has been undergoing a metamorphosis over the past few years, even becoming a meathead." Munster described the move as marginally positive for Meta's stock by reducing some risk to the business.
"I think there's one side that could be negative — which is the impact on how some advertisers think about working with Meta," Munster said. "But I think what advertisers are most interested in is what's their return on investment. If they're getting a good return advertising on Instagram, they'll continue to do that."
Part of Zuckerberg's positioning may have to do with his biggest threat — TikTok. Its fate is in the hands of Trump, who revived the wildly popular video app in the US with an executive order on Monday.
Analysts speculate that Trump's support for TikTok shows that he's not favoring Meta — which would stand to gain the most (along with Google) if TikTok were indeed banned.
"The unanswered question in all of this is how does Zuckerberg's realignment impact how hard Trump fights for or against TikTok?" Munster said. "If Trump ends up not fighting the ban — that would be a KO for Zuckerberg and Meta."
