Did Elon Musk Inspire Zuckerberg’s Brutal Meta Layoffs?

Zuckerberg with grief announced the major Meta layoffs and experts think that Elon inspired it

Mark Zuckerberg apologized to Meta workers after sending an early morning email confirming thousands of job losses amid soaring costs and a weak advertising market. The Facebook founder told executives in a meeting yesterday that 11,000 jobs will be cut in such huge Meta layoffs along with recruiting and business teams to face major losses.

Zuckerberg, 38, was said to have appeared gloomy on the call and also said he was accountable for missteps made by Meta. Employees received the confirmation about the cuts in a company-wide email which was sent at 6 am EST this morning – with staff able to keep their email addresses for an extra day to say 'farewell'. The CEO admitted that he got it wrong in the message and he takes responsibility for the problems which caused him to make the cuts – which make up 13 percent of Meta's workforce. It is the first time in Meta's 18-year history that they will be making major layoffs, which follow redundancies at other major tech companies including Twitter and Microsoft Corp.

Taking a page out from Twitter CEO Elon Musk's book, Zuckerberg sent an early morning email to all employees letting them know the company had lost two-thirds of its value. He said: 'Not only has online commerce returned to prior trends, but the macroeconomic downturn, increased competition, and ads signal loss have caused our revenue to be much lower than I'd expected. Zuckerberg stressed the company would shift resources to 'high priority growth areas such as its AI discovery engine, ads, and business platforms, as well as its metaverse project.

The pandemic boom that boosted tech companies and their valuations has turned into a bust this year in the face of decades-high inflation and rapidly rising interest rates. As of the market opening on Wednesday, the share price has risen five percent today, with a bigger increase expected. Meta said it would pay 16 weeks of base pay plus two additional weeks for every year of service as a part of the severance package and all remaining paid time off. Employees will get the cost of healthcare for six months and those impacted will receive their Nov. 15 vesting, according to the company. Meta said it also plans to cut discretionary spending and extend its hiring freeze through the first quarter.

The company's shares, which have lost more than two-thirds of their value, were up about three percent in pre-market trading. Zuckerberg said in October that he expected to end 2023 'roughly the same size, signaling that some jobs could be recouped following the layoffs. It is thought that Meta could launch another hiring drive next year which focuses on its Reality Labs arm, the department which takes the lead on the Metaverse.

Meta recently forecast a weak holiday quarter and significantly more costs next year wiping about $67 billion from stock market value, adding to the more than half a trillion dollars in value already lost this year. The disappointing outlook comes as Meta is contending with slowing global economic growth, competition from TikTok, privacy changes from Apple, concerns about massive spending on the metaverse, and the ever-present threat of regulation.

Meta has placed a big bet on its Metaverse being the next big frontier of the technology industry, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg funneling more than $36 billion into the project that many consider – so far at least – to be failing. The CEO has subsequently seen more than $30 billion of those funds evaporate in a matter of months, while his net worth – which is largely tied up to his company's valuation – was reported to have lost $88 billion.