Chan Zuckerberg Initiative workers express concern, as recent changes there similar to those at Meta

The for-profit charity organization founded by Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan told employees last month that its commitment to corporate diversity is not changing even after Meta eliminated its diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

Employees of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) expressed concern in January after Meta’s top HR executive announced that that company would no longer put resources toward hiring and working with diverse and underrepresented job candidates and business suppliers (a suite of practices often referred to as DEI, for diversity, equity and inclusion), according to internal CZI messages viewed by the Guardian.

In the days after the end of Meta’s diversity efforts became public, CZI employees wrote in a Slack group for managers and executives that they found the changes at Meta “extremely troubling” and asked whether CZI executives would “reaffirm” the organization’s values, according to screenshots of the messages.

In response to the employee messages, Mark Gundacker, CZI’s head of human resources, wrote: “Meta and CZI are and will remain separate organizations with entirely different and independent commitments. Decisions made at Meta do not impact how we operate at CZI. Like in this case, Meta’s changes to its DEI efforts does not impact ours. If employees have questions, please reaffirm this for them and we’ll continue to do the same whenever the question comes up.” A CZI spokesperson declined to comment.

While CZI is a smaller operation than Meta, the organization states on its website that it operates “at the intersection of philanthropy and technology to achieve progress across our focus areas with a diversity, equity, and inclusion lens”. When CZI recruiters and managers are hiring for jobs, the hiring process is vetted by the company to ensure that qualified applicants from backgrounds that are underrepresented at the company were considered. A similar process used to occur at Meta. One difference: CZI has never maintained the type of business-supplier diversity program that Meta maintained.

CZI employees have seen the organization make changes that echo those made at Meta in the recent past. Shortly after Zuckerberg revealed his “efficiency” push at Meta in 2023, which entailed mass layoffs and several reorganizations, CZI also conducted layoffs for the first time. It later reorganized as a “science first” organization, moving away from previous areas of focus like education and criminal justice reform. Chan said in a note to staff last year that the changes were an effort to ensure “we’re working efficiently”.

Another Meta-esque move came in January of this year, when CZI employees received a new mandate going into effect on 1 April to return to working in the foundation’s Redwood City, California, headquarters at least three days a week. Remote work has been allowed at CZI since the early days of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, and workers who received approval to work remotely before the new mandate will not be required to work in an office, according to documents viewed by the Guardian. As for everyone else, if they do not meet the return to office (RTO) requirement, they “may face disciplinary action, up to and including termination”. Meta rolled out an almost identical RTO policy a year and a half ago.

Zuckerberg and Chan started their foundation a decade ago as a grant and investment vehicle for the massive wealth the couple gained through Meta, the social media company previously known as Facebook, where Zuckerberg is CEO and co-founder. Their commitment to investing 99% of their wealth makes CZI one of the most significant and well-funded philanthro-capitalist enterprises in the world.

Zuckerberg is co-founder and co-CEO of CZI with Chan. While Chan is seen inside CZI as its day-to-day leader, Zuckerberg also makes decisions for the organization, including ones regarding layoffs and reorganization, and is said by a current employee to maintain oversight of CZI’s yearly budget. He regularly appears in all-hands meetings with staff, most recently in December wearing eyeglasses that were not Meta Ray-Bans, which he frequently wears in public appearances, according to an image viewed by the Guardian.

Meta terminates its DEI programs days before Trump inauguration

Read more

Despite CZI’s assurances to staff that Zuckerberg’s changes to Meta will not affect CZI, employee concern has been brewing in recent months as they have watched their co-leader make public moves to forge ties with Donald Trump and his administration, some more overt than others. In addition to Meta ending efforts around DEI, a bogeyman of the political right, the company agreed to pay Trump a $25m legal settlement and donated $1m to Trump’s inauguration fund. In a meeting with Meta employees last week, Zuckerberg said: “We now have an opportunity to have a productive partnership with the United States government, and we’re going to take that.”

Chan attended the Trump inauguration alongside Zuckerberg, where the couple sat among Trump’s billionaire confidants. Her presence came as a surprise within CZI, according to a current employee, in large part because of CZI’s commitment to DEI and investing in scientific research. Less than two weeks into his second term, Trump attempted to push through deep cuts in funding for the National Institutes of Health, the largest biomedical institution in the world, and the National Science Foundation, which supports non-medical research. CZI has given funds to NIH several times, the most recent being in 2023, according to its website.

Staff members remain wary that CZI’s purported commitment to independence will stick.

“A lot of people think Priscilla opposes Mark’s thinking, but maybe she doesn’t?” the employee said.