A protest has sparked among Meta employees at corporate offices following significant changes made by CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg has been aligning his company more closely with the policies of President Donald Trump, causing unrest among the workforce.

Shortly after Zuckerberg announced the elimination of Meta’s diversity initiatives, which were previously targeted by Trump’s administration, the company took another controversial step. They removed sanitary products from men’s restrooms, causing further uproar among employees.

The provision had been introduced to support transgender and nonbinary employees.

The decision to remove these products was not well-received, leading employees to take matters into their own hands. Workers began restocking the men’s restrooms themselves, defiantly placing tampons, pads, and liners back where they belonged.

Five Meta employees familiar with the effort confirmed the protest, which has moved the clash from the boardroom to the bathroom. 

A petition was then circulated demanding the reinstatement of such amenities. 

The act has become emblematic of a larger movement among Silicon Valley’s workforce, which is increasingly finding itself at odds with the rightward shift of its leadership.

Zuckerberg’s policy shifts are just the latest in a stunning realignment of Silicon Valley’s elite. 

Once bastions of progressive values, the heads of Meta, Google, Apple, and Amazon have recently embraced Trump’s presidency. 

The moment was cemented when Zuckerberg, along with Sundar Pichai, Tim Cook, and Jeff Bezos, attended Trump’s inauguration.

The visual of the tech moguls, who once condemned Trump’s policies, now standing alongside him, sent shockwaves through their workforces. 

But the discontent has not manifested in the mass protests and open rebellion seen during Trump’s first term. Instead, workers have resorted to subtle yet pointed acts of resistance.

At Google, an employee reluctantly approved a celebratory fireworks animation for Trump’s inauguration, leaving a clear digital paper trail stating that the decision was mandated by Pichai. 

At Amazon, employees quietly exchanged messages lamenting their company’s participation in the event, with one likening it to a familial betrayal: ‘Father is at the inauguration.’ 

Meanwhile, at Apple, stunned employees watched their CEO, Tim Cook, share a platform with Trump after previously making a rare political donation of $1 million to his inauguration fund.

The protests reflect a stark reality: that the balance of power in Silicon Valley has shifted dramatically. 

Gone are the days when workers could freely challenge their leadership without fear of reprisal. 

Over the past few years, Zuckerberg, Musk, and their peers have taken a firm grip on their companies, raising performance expectations, clamping down on internal dissent, and swiftly eliminating those who cross the line.

Musk’s overhaul of X served as a warning shot. Musk’s decision to lay off over three-quarters of his workforce in 2022 and his declaration that only the ‘hardcore’ would survive signaled a new era of top-down authoritarianism in tech. 

The message was clear: those who openly defy leadership will find themselves out of a job.

At Meta, the crackdown has been just as intense. Internal message boards that once buzzed with political discourse have been systematically scrubbed of dissent. 

Posts criticizing Zuckerberg’s decisions have been removed, and employees responsible for them have received warnings from HR. 

When workers recently tried to organize a petition calling for the return of sanitary products to all Meta restrooms, signatories were met with a blunt email from Meta’s workplace services VP: while the company did not intend to make employees feel excluded, there were ‘no plans to revisit on-site amenities offerings.’

Zuckerberg’s rightward turn has not been subtle. 

In addition to gutting diversity programs, he has promoted Republican-aligned executives and appointed Trump ally Dana White, the president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, to Meta’s board of directors. 

His recent statements on the need for more ‘masculine energy’ in corporate leadership have only fueled employee anxiety.

While many hoped to question Zuckerberg directly about his decisions, Meta’s internal Q&A sessions have been sanitized, with leadership preemptively skipping questions deemed ‘unproductive if they leak.’ 

One sarcastic yet poignant question that circulated internally – how women at Meta could bring more ‘masculine energy’ to the workplace – was predictably ignored.

Tech leaders who once championed diversity, inclusion, and globalism are now aligning with a president who vilifies these very ideals with the once-unshakable progressive ethos of Silicon Valley now under siege.