Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s new machismo and perceived alignment with President Trump has reportedly unsettled employees and execs inside the company.
The billionaire tech mogul has been dubbed ‘MAGA Mark’ by staffers following his January appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience, where he criticized Corporate America as ‘culturally neutered’ and called for more ‘masculine energy’ in the workplace.
Zuckerberg’s remarks – made as an aspiring MMA fighter – sparked discomfort among employees at Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, according to the Financial Times.
In the days following the interview, several executives raised concerns during a leadership meeting at Meta’s California headquarters.
‘He basically said, “If you don’t like it, tough s**t,”‘ a source familiar with the conversation told the Financial Times.
On the podcast, Zuckerberg, 41, also praised mixed martial arts as a form of male bonding and argued that male aggression can be constructive.
‘There’s this crazy thing about wrestling,’ he told Rogan, a former MMA commentator.
‘If you get into a fight with someone at work, you’re probably going to get fired. But if you train in MMA, you can roll hard with someone and you’re both better friends afterward.’
‘In a lot of the corporate world, there’s this assumption that aggression or intensity is inherently negative,’ he added. ‘But it’s not. I actually think it’s useful – you just need to know how to channel that energy.’
Zuckerberg’s evolution from a traditional Silicon Valley liberal to someone increasingly aligned with Donald Trump, 79, has become a hallmark of his leadership at Meta.
Once known as a low-profile, hoodie-clad Democrat, Zuckerberg has reshaped his public persona – appearing shirtless in MMA training videos, sporting gold chains, and flaunting luxury watches.
His appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast – one of several engagements with largely male, anti-woke audiences – fueled growing criticism that he’s signaling a broader political shift to the right.
His public praise for Trump and reductions in content moderation at Meta have further intensified concerns about the company’s ideological direction, the Financial Times reported.
But, insiders argue that Zuckerberg isn’t changing so much as revealing a version of himself they’ve always known.
‘When he was 19 years old, I think he had an idea in his head of what a CEO was supposed to be like and he was trying to be that, especially in public,’ Meta’s chief technology officer Andrew Bosworth, told the Financial Times.
‘The public is seeing him more how we have, internally, since the beginning,’ Bosworth added.
Zuckerberg’s evolving persona comes as he positions Meta aggressively in the high-stakes race for dominance in artificial intelligence.
Last week, the company made headlines with its $14.3 billion acquisition of Scale AI, securing a 49 percent non-voting stake in the startup and access to its infrastructure and talent – including founder Alexandr Wang, who now leads Meta’s new ‘superintelligence’ unit.
However, his move has triggered backlash from rivals, with OpenAI and Google severing ties with Scale over conflict-of-interest concerns, the New York Post reported.
With plans to spend $65 billion annually on AI by 2025, the technology company is ‘betting big.’
But, the ambitious approach comes with risks, including mounting costs, regulatory scrutiny, and challenges in retaining top engineering talent.
As of Friday, Zuckerberg was the world’s second-richest person, with a net worth of $245 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Despite the heavy-hitting criticism, Zuckerberg isn’t alone in his apparent shift toward a more MAGA-aligned stance.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, once seen as a liberal-leaning titan of industry, has recently voiced criticisms of the Biden administration and echoed right-leaning talking points.
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk famously made a similar pivot earlier, aligning himself with conservative narratives on free speech, ‘wokeness,’ and government overreach – positions that initially found common ground with figures like Trump before their public falling out.
