Meta has reportedly fired a handful of staffers who have been abusing the company’s $25 meal stipend, spending the money on non-food items or having their meals delivered to their homes.
According to posts on the tech professional social media site Blind, the firings took place last week, with staff being discharged from their posts in the Los Angeles office.
Separately, Meta has begun restructuring teams more widely in its WhatsApp, Instagram and Reality Labs divisions.
Writing on Blind, one Meta staffer outlined that employees are given a $25 GrubHub credit if they work past 6 p.m. in offices that don’t have cafeterias on site.
A post seen by Fortune on the Blind platform alleges the disgraced staffers were ordering meals when they weren’t even in the office, were giving their credits to other members of staff, or were using the credits to buy groceries and other household essentials.
Between 20 and 30 members of staff have reportedly been laid off.
Meta is hardly shy of cash to splash—but that doesn’t mean Mark Zuckerberg is allowing the company to get soft.
The company is currently valued at nearly $1.5 trillion, having reported Q2 2024 earnings of $39.07 billion in July—an increase of 22% year over year.
But the man at the helm, worth $204 billion himself, pushed for a “year of efficiency” in 2023 and announced it would lay off 10,000 staffers and freeze hiring for 5,000 more.
And it seems Meta isn’t afraid to let go of even some of its most highly-paid employees.
A further post on Blind, reported by The Financial Times, was written by an employee who claims to have been paid $400,000 a year by the company.
The individual said they worked “nights and weekends” for the Big Tech giant and had spent their $25 credit on items like toothpaste and tea from pharmacy Rite Aid.
The person said if their partner was cooking or they were eating out with friends, the money would be spent on other items as the employee felt they “ought not to waste” the perk.
In the post, the employee claimed they had admitted their error to Human Resources but had later been fired, adding: “It was almost surreal.”
Meta did not respond to Fortune’s request for comment seeking confirmation or clarification on the issue.
More Meta layoffs
The handful of people laid off over meal expenses won’t be the only ones leaving Meta.
Separately, Meta has confirmed restructuring in other teams.
The tech giant told The Financial Times: “Today, a few teams at Meta are making changes to ensure resources are aligned with their long-term strategic goals and location strategy.
“This includes moving some teams to different locations, and moving some employees to different roles. In situations like this when a role is eliminated, we work hard to find other opportunities for impacted employees.”
The market has widely welcomed Zuckerberg’s moves, which have improved efficiency and increased the focus on artificial intelligence.
Meta’s share price is up 67% for the year to date, and up 78% over the past 12 months to $577.
Zuckerberg isn’t alone in making some unpopular staffing decisions in order to keep a Big Tech behemoth dynamic.
In January, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai told staff in an internal memo that slashing the roles was part of a wider decision to invest further into emerging technologies like AI.
“The reality is that to create the capacity for this investment, we have to make tough choices,” he wrote.
For some teams, that entailed eliminating jobs, which Pichai described as “removing layers to simplify execution and drive velocity.”
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