- Mark Zuckerberg praised Sheryl Sandberg in a Threads post on Friday.
- He also denied a report that said he blamed Sandberg for an inclusivity program at Facebook.
- Meta recently said it was rolling back its DEI initiatives.
Mark Zuckerberg praised former Meta COO Sheryl Sandberg on Friday and denied reporting that said he had blamed her for an inclusivity program at the company.
“Sheryl did amazing work at Meta and will forever be a legend in the industry. She built one of the greatest businesses of all time and taught me much of what I know,” Zuckerberg said in a post on Threads.
The post was sent in response to another user who shared a Business Insider article from last year with the headline, “Mark Zuckerberg jokes that Sheryl Sandberg raised him ‘like a parent.'” The user said it “didn’t age well.”
Sandberg responded in a Threads post: “Thank you, @zuck. I will always be grateful for the many years we spent building a great business together — and for your friendship that got me through some of the hardest times of my life and continues to this day.”
Representatives for Sandberg declined to comment when reached by BI. Neither Meta nor Zuckerberg responded to Business Insider’s request for comment.
In a Threads post sent a few hours later, Zuckerberg wrote: “I answered a question about where the phrase ‘bring your whole self to work’ came from, and now there’s a whole bogus narrative saying I blamed Sheryl for a bunch of stuff that I never did and never will.”
The quote “bring your whole self to work” has previously been attributed to Sandberg, who has pushed for women’s empowerment in the workplace and wrote the book “Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead.”
Zuckerberg appeared to be referencing a New York Times report published Thursday that described a meeting between the Meta CEO and Stephen Miller, an advisor to President-elect Donald Trump, at Mar-a-Lago late last year.
The Times said Miller told Zuckerberg Trump would target DEI culture, including at companies like Meta. Zuckerberg assured Miller he would not stand in Trump’s way, the Times reported, citing three unnamed sources.
The outlet also reported that one source said Zuckerberg blamed Sandberg for an inclusivity initiative at Facebook during the same meeting.
The reporting was met with some backlash online and support for Sandberg, who was sometimes referred to as the “adult in the room” at Facebook while she was there.
Zuckerberg appears to be reshaping Meta ahead of the incoming Trump administration. Meta told employees last week it was rolling back its DEI programs in addition to ending the use of third-party fact-checkers in favor of a community notes system.
During an appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast last week, Zuckerberg said “masculine energy” was needed in the workplace.
“Masculine energy, I think, is good, and obviously society has plenty of that, but I think that corporate culture was really trying to get away from it,” he said in an interview on the “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast. “It’s like you want feminine energy; you want masculine energy.”
January 17, 2025: This story has been updated to include a post from Mark Zuckerberg denying reporting that he blamed Sheryl Sandberg.
