Mehta reportedly abused several staff members’ $25 meal allowances provided by the company, spending the money on non-food items or having meals delivered to their homes. It is reported that he was fired.
The layoffs were made last week, with employees removed from their positions in the company’s Los Angeles office, according to a post on Blind, a social media site for technology professionals.
Separately, Meta has initiated a broader team restructuring in its WhatsApp, Instagram and Reality Labs divisions.
Writing in Blind, one meta staffer outlined that employees will receive a $25 Grubhub credit if they work past 6 p.m. in an office that doesn’t have an on-site cafeteria.
Posts seen on the Fortune the Blind platform claim that the disgraced staff members were ordering food when they were not in the office. He gave credit to other staff members. or used credit to purchase groceries and other household items.
Between 20 and 30 staff members were reportedly laid off.
Meta is willing to spend a lot of money, but that doesn’t mean Mark Zuckerberg is letting the company go soft.
Meta’s current value is about $1.5 trillion, and in July it reported second-quarter 2024 profits of $39.07 billion, up 22% from the same period last year.
But the executive, who himself is worth $204 billion, has announced that he will promote a “year of efficiency” in 2023. Lay off and freeze 10,000 employees Recruit 5,000 more people.
And Meta doesn’t seem afraid to let go of even some of its highest-paid employees.
A further post about Blind, reported by the Financial Times, was written by an employee who claims to be paid $400,000 a year by the company.
The person said he worked “nights and weekends” for the tech giant and used his $25 credit on items like toothpaste and tea from the Rite Aid pharmacy.
The employee said she felt the perks “shouldn’t be wasted” and the money would be spent on other things if her partner was cooking or going out to eat with friends.
In the post, the employee claims he admitted his mistake to human resources but was later fired, adding, “It was almost unrealistic.”
Mehta did not respond to Fortune’s request for comment for confirmation or clarification on the matter.
More meta layoffs
It’s not just the few people who were fired over food costs that are leaving Meta.
Separately, the meta allowed other team restructuring.
The tech giant told the Financial Times: “Today, several teams at Meta are making changes to ensure we align our resources with our long-term strategic goals and location strategy.
“This includes moving some teams to different locations or moving some employees to different roles. In situations like this where roles are eliminated, We are working hard to find other opportunities for our employees.”
The market has widely welcomed Zuckerberg’s moves to improve efficiency and increase focus on artificial intelligence.
Meta’s stock price has increased 67% since the beginning of the year and 78% in the past 12 months to $577.
Mr. Zuckerberg is not alone in making unpopular personnel decisions to maintain the dynamics of big tech companies.
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai told staff in an internal memo in January that the role reductions were part of a broader decision to invest more in emerging technologies such as AI.
“The reality is that to create this investment capacity, we must make difficult choices,” he wrote.
For some teams, this required removing jobs, which Pichai described as “removing layers to simplify execution and increase speed.”
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