Leaked Meeting Shows Mark Zuckerberg Complaining About Leaks as Meta Faces Internal Turmoil

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg appears to be losing control behind the scenes, as leaked footage from a company meeting obtained by 404 Media shows him expressing frustration—about leaks. The irony of Zuckerberg’s complaint comes as he faces increasing scrutiny over Meta’s growing alignment with the Trump administration.

The company has made several controversial moves in recent months, including dismantling Facebook’s fact-checking system and settling a $25 million lawsuit Trump filed over his account suspension after the January 6 attack. Critics argue these decisions appear aimed at easing antitrust pressure from the federal government.

In the leaked footage, Zuckerberg opened the meeting by explaining why he would not be following Meta’s usual practice of polling employees on what questions he should address. “I want to be able to talk about stuff openly, but I am also trying to like, well, we’re trying to build stuff and create value in the world, not destroy value by talking about stuff that inevitably leaks,” Zuckerberg said.

He acknowledged the difficulty of maintaining secrecy in such a large company. “There are a bunch of things that I think are value-destroying for me to talk about, so I’m not going to talk about those. But I think it’ll be good. You all can give us feedback later. Maybe it’s just the nature of running a company at scale, but it’s a little bit of a bummer.”

According to 404 Media, Zuckerberg repeated several public positions during the meeting, including his belief that AI will soon replace software engineers, that open-source AI will surpass closed-source AI, and that Meta’s relationship with the Trump administration has improved now that he has adjusted platform policies to align more closely with it.

Meanwhile, The New York Times’s Sheera Frankel reported that Meta has renewed its crackdown on internal dissent, warning employees that the company will actively hunt for leakers and enforce a “zero-tolerance” policy. However, the effort to silence leaks appears to be backfiring.

“Want to know how that is going?” Frankel wrote. “Three Meta employees who I’ve never spoken to before just cold messaged/emailed me offering me to be sources.” As Meta continues to face internal unrest and external criticism, the leaked meeting only underscores growing concerns about Zuckerberg’s leadership and the company’s increasingly close ties to Trump’s White House.