Meta is trying to sweeten a bitter workplace shake-up with better snacks, office perks, more travel budgets, and management changes, after CTO Andrew Bosworth reportedly acknowledged that employee morale is near historic lows.
The slump follows major layoffs totaling around 8,000 employees, artificial intelligence (AI) reassignments, and internal pushback over how the company handled its Applied AI transition.
TL;DR
- Meta is reportedly improving snacks, office events, travel budgets, and manager support to lift employee morale.
- The move follows 8,000 layoffs and thousands of AI-related reassignments.
- Andrew Bosworth reportedly admitted Meta mishandled communication around the shift.
- X is using the moment to court Meta talent with a “snack budget” jab.
Meta’s Snack Strategy Arrives As AI Reassignments Test Employee Trust
Meta’s latest morale repair plan may start in the office kitchen, but the problem runs far deeper than snacks and drinks.
According to reports, Meta CTO Andrew “Boz” Bosworth admitted that employee sentiment has fallen to one of its lowest points in years, close to the atmosphere around the Cambridge Analytica fallout. That is a sharp internal signal for a company already asking workers to absorb rapid changes tied to artificial intelligence.
The strain reportedly accelerated after Meta laid off 8,000 employees, amounting to about 10% of its workforce. Around 6,500 engineers and product managers were also moved into the company’s centralized Applied AI division, where some employees reportedly found the work repetitive, menial, and far removed from the roles they expected to perform.
That shift appears to have bruised trust inside Meta. Workers who were once aligned to specific engineering and product goals suddenly found themselves contributing to model training and data-labeling workflows.
At the same time, the company’s reported plans to track computer activity, keystrokes, and mouse movements to optimize training workflows added another layer of frustration.
Meta Adds Perks, Manager Caps, And Transfer Options To Stabilize Teams
Meta’s response includes several workplace adjustments aimed at making the company feel less chaotic and more supportive.
The company is reportedly introducing a maximum of 20 direct reports per manager, a move designed to give employees more personalized guidance after management structures were disrupted. It is also expanding travel budgets, investing in office social events, and improving snack areas.
The snack move has drawn attention because it sounds small compared with the scale of the problem. However, Meta appears to be using perks as part of a broader culture reset, not as the only fix.
The more meaningful change may be giving reassigned employees the option to apply for other internal roles. Applied AI vice president Maher Saba reportedly said workers moved into the AI division would now be allowed to seek transfers elsewhere inside Meta.
X Uses Meta’s Morale Dip To Court Engineers With A Snack Budget Joke
Meta’s workplace turbulence has also created an opening for rivals.
Nikita Bier, a senior product executive at X, publicly invited “neglected” Meta employees to apply for web and data engineering roles, joking that X would “match or even exceed any snack budget offer.” Candidates were reportedly encouraged to use the word “snacks” in applications for roles with pay ranging from $180,000 to $440,000.
The jab lands because Meta’s morale problem is now part of a broader AI talent story. The company is spending heavily to reorient itself around AI, but the internal cost of that pivot is becoming harder to ignore.
For Meta, better snacks may help soften the workday. Yet the real test will be whether employees believe the company can turn its AI overhaul into meaningful career paths, instead of another round of disruption wrapped in office perks.
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Andrew Bosworth Says Meta “Did An Atrocious Job” Explaining Its AI Vision
Bosworth reportedly took responsibility for the rocky rollout, writing, “We obviously did an atrocious job explaining the vision, giving people a clear picture of how we would support them and their careers in the shift, and painting a picture of how it would change over time.”
That admission is central to Meta’s current repair effort. The issue is not just that employees were reassigned, but that many reportedly felt the company had weakened their confidence in career growth, technical impact, and the value of their specific expertise.
Bosworth also reportedly acknowledged that Meta had “undermined the trust” employees had in whether their contributions would be valued and whether the company remained a place where they could grow. For a business racing to compete in AI, that trust gap could be as important as the technology itself.
