From ‘masculine energy’ to scrapping fact-checks, Mark Zuckerberg’s recent moves align Meta with Donald Trump
Mark Zuckerberg has expressed regret over corporate culture's “neutered” state, seemingly aligning with the coming Donald Trump administration views during a podcast with Joe Rogan.
After scrapping Meta Platform's fact-checking policies, Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made another public manoeuvre, seemingly aligning himself and his mega corporation with the coming Donald Trump administration.
Speaking on The Joe Rogan Experience, the influential American media personality Joe Rogan's podcast, published on January 10, Zuckerberg expressed regret over the “neutered” state of companies, stating that they need to “celebrate masculine aggression a bit more”, Bloomberg reported.
Rogan, is considered among the most popular podcast host worldwide, with 19 million subscribers on YouTube and over 15 million subscribers on Spotify. His political leanings have been broad — he supported Bernie Sanders in 2020 and Donald Trump in 2024. However, he has often been criticised for platforming conspiracy theories.
During the interview, Zuckerberg praised podcasts for fueling a “sea change in terms of who are the voices that matter” as opposed to traditional media.
The ‘Elusive’ Masculine Energy
Zuckerberg lamented to Rogan during the three-hour conversation, “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.”
“It’s like you want feminine energy, you want masculine energy. I think that that’s all good. But I do think the corporate culture sort of had swung toward being this somewhat more neutered thing,” he added.
The multi-billionaire then went on to talk about his non-work passions — mixed martial arts and invasive pig hunting in Hawaii, the report added.
On Women in Masculine Corporations…
During the conversation, Zuckerberg also went on to mention that he grew up with three sisters and has three daughters — and so he wants women to succeed in companies. Notably, Meta began as Facebook during Zuckerberg's time at Harvard University — its pilot purpose being to rate the attractiveness of women on the campus, the report added.
“If you’re a woman going into a company, it probably feels like it’s too masculine. It’s — there isn’t enough of the energy that you may naturally have. You want women to be able to succeed and have companies that can unlock all the value from having great people no matter what their background or gender,” he told Rogan.
On ‘Brutal’ Joe Biden..
Zuckerberg also took repeated allegation against outgoing US President Joe Biden during the interview, claiming White House officials would “scream” and “curse” at Meta employees over content related to COVID-19 during the pandemic. He first wrote about this in a letter to Congress in August 2024.
“It was brutal,” Zuckerberg said, adding that the administration overstepped in its requests to take down posts about the pandemic, including satire, sowing distrust among the electorate, the report added.
“The US government should be defending its companies, not be at the tip of the spear attacking its companies,” Zuckerberg said, adding that he is “optimistic” about Trump, “I think he just wants America to win.”
The Biden administration declined to comment on Zuckerberg's allegations, the report added.
Meta's Many Policy Changes
However, while Zuckerberg may continue to espouse support for facts, equality and women in words, his latest moves have been criticised for taking a turn closer to Trump's policies.
On January 7, he announced the company's pivot from professional fact-checking of content to reliance on “Community Notes” type crowdsourced features for posts. Reports have also emerged of employees complaining about Meta's loosened content moderation policies allowing bias towards non-binary people, immigrants, transgender, and LGBTQ+ users and comments on user’s sex or gender.
On January 10 the company also said it was halting many of its internal training and hiring efforts aimed at making its workforce more diverse. Notably, McDonald's, Harley Davidson and Walmart are other big names that have also pulled back on diversity promises.
The report added that Zuckerberg has been “repositioning” his company to be more Trump-friendly in recent months. He praised Trump after the November 5 election win, dined with the US president-elect at his Florida residence Mar-a-Lago last month, donated to his inaugural fund, and plans to attend Trump’s inauguration. He is not alone, Amazon mogul Jeff Bezos and Apple's Tim Cook are among others who have also begun cozying up to the Republican president-to be.
(With inputs from Bloomberg)
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First Published:11 Jan 2025, 08:08 AM IST
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