Zuckerberg Praises Sheryl Sandberg After Report of DEI Program Blame

• Mark Zuckerberg praised Sheryl Sandberg in a Threads publish on Friday.
• He additionally denied a report that mentioned he blamed Sandberg for an inclusivity program at Fb.
• Meta not too long ago mentioned it was rolling again its DEI initiatives.

Mark Zuckerberg praised former Meta COO Sheryl Sandberg on Friday and denied reporting that mentioned he had blamed her for an inclusivity program on the firm.

“Sheryl did superb work at Meta and can without end be a legend within the business. She constructed one of many biggest companies of all time and taught me a lot of what I do know,” Zuckerberg mentioned in a publish on Threads.

The publish was despatched in response to a different consumer who shared a Enterprise Insider article from final 12 months with the headline, “Mark Zuckerberg jokes that Sheryl Sandberg raised him ‘like a guardian.'” The consumer mentioned it “did not age nicely.”

Sandberg responded in a Threads publish: “Thanks, @zuck. I’ll all the time be thankful for the various years we spent constructing an awesome enterprise collectively — and to your friendship that acquired me by a number of the hardest instances of my life and continues to this present day.”

Representatives for Sandberg declined to remark when reached by BI. Neither Meta nor Zuckerberg responded to Enterprise Insider’s request for remark.

In a Threads publish despatched just a few hours later, Zuckerberg wrote: “I answered a query about the place the phrase ‘convey your complete self to work’ got here from, and now there’s a complete bogus narrative saying I blamed Sheryl for a bunch of stuff that I by no means did and by no means will.”

The quote “convey your complete self to work” has beforehand been attributed to Sandberg, who has pushed for ladies’s empowerment within the office and wrote the e-book “Lean In: Girls, Work, and the Will to Lead.”

Zuckerberg seemed to be referencing a New York Instances report revealed Thursday that described a gathering between the Meta CEO and Stephen Miller, an advisor to President-elect Donald Trump, at Mar-a-Lago late final 12 months.

The Instances mentioned Miller informed Zuckerberg Trump would goal DEI tradition, together with at firms like Meta. Zuckerberg assured Miller he wouldn’t stand in Trump’s method, the Instances reported, citing three unnamed sources.

The outlet additionally reported that one supply mentioned Zuckerberg blamed Sandberg for an inclusivity initiative at Fb throughout the identical assembly.

The reporting was met with some backlash on-line and assist for Sandberg, who was typically known as the “grownup within the room” at Fb whereas she was there.

Zuckerberg seems to be reshaping Meta forward of the incoming Trump administration. Meta informed staff final week it was rolling again its DEI packages along with ending using third-party fact-checkers in favor of a group notes system.

Throughout an look on Joe Rogan’s podcast final week, Zuckerberg mentioned “masculine vitality” was wanted within the office.

“Masculine vitality, I feel, is sweet, and clearly society has loads of that, however I feel that company tradition was actually attempting to get away from it,” he mentioned in an interview on the “Joe Rogan Expertise” podcast. “It is such as you need female vitality; you need masculine vitality.”

January 17, 2025: This story has been up to date to incorporate a publish from Mark Zuckerberg denying reporting that he blamed  Sheryl Sandberg.