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Laid-off Meta employee takes potshots at company: ‘Won’t miss Zuck’s newfound masculine energy’
After being laid off from Meta, an employee disputed claims of performance-based layoffs, citing her strong performance reviews and recent maternity leave.
Meta has begun a fresh round of layoffs with an aim to trim its workforce by 5%. The layoffs will affect roughly 3,600 workers across Europe, Asia and the US, reported Business Insider. In an internal memo, the tech giant claimed that the job cuts will be performance-based, targeting employees who have failed to meet expectations. However, a handful of employees who were let go by Meta have already disputed this claim, saying they never received a bad review during their time with the company. One such affected employee is Elana Reman Safner, who worked for over three years as a product counsel for MetaWorks until she was laid off earlier this week.
In a LinkedIn post, US-based Safner took potshots at Meta, saying the decision to lay her off was not performance-based. She claimed that she was “collateral damage” of Mark Zuckerberg’s “newfound masculine energy” and would not miss several things about her time at Meta.
“Meta laid me off yesterday”
In her LinkedIn post, Elana Safner said she was laid off weeks after returning from her six-month maternity leave. She wrote that despite Meta’s claims of laying off underperforming employees, the tech giant targeted employees who had a recent history of taking leaves.
She herself was blindsided by Meta’s decision to lay her off, given that she had never received a bad performance review.
“Meta laid me off yesterday in its ‘performance-based’ layoffs, and I was blindsided,” wrote Safner.
“I have never received a review below ‘Meets All’ my 3+ years at Meta, and I was on mat leave for 6 months until November.
“It is very hard to believe that – despite Meta indicating my expectations are prorated – I did not do enough. Many laid off today have similar stories – a history of good performance, and a recent leave of absence,” she said.
Safner gave a detailed overview of her role at Meta and what she accomplished during her time with the company. She also expressed her gratitude for the team she worked with, writing: “Even when I disagreed with product direction or was disappointed by Meta in the news, my clients and colleagues kept me energized! I have never worked in a place where every person I work with is someone I would be friends with outside of work. Reality Labs Legal is a family – I am grateful for you & I will miss working with you.”
Potshots at Meta
However, the Washington DC-based product counsel also had some choice words for the company that laid her off. She listed a number of things she would not miss about Meta, including Zuckerberg’s attitude in shooting down “beloved products” that he did not deem glamorous enough, her career trajectory and the stress of the job.
“Here’s what I won’t miss: my career trajectory being completely at the whim of product decisions I have no control over, mental overload, 34-page one-pagers, having 62 tabs open, deprecating beloved products because they weren’t ‘moonshot’ enough for Zuck, Zuck’s newfound “masculine energy” and being its collateral damage,” wrote Safner.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently and controversially told podcast host Joe Rogan that American companies had become neutered and needed to regain their “masculine energy”.
The layoffs at Meta come shortly after the company ended its diversity, equity and inclusion program in wake of Donald Trump’s election as US president.
