Meta Fires Employees For Spending Food Allowances On Personal Items Like Acne Pads And Wine Glasses

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, has dismissed over two dozen employees from its Los Angeles office for using company meal credits to purchase items such as laundry detergent, wine glasses, and acne treatment pads.

Many of Meta’s corporate offices have elaborate food services that provide employees with meals for free, but Meta employees at smaller offices without food services are given meal vouchers worth $20 for breakfast and $25 for lunch and dinner, allowing them to have food delivered to the office while on the job.

The meal vouchers are intended for employees to eat while working at the office, but an internal investigation discovered that some Los Angeles-based employees used the meal funds to purchase non-food items or had meals delivered to their homes, according to a source quoted in a Financial Times report.

The firings, which occurred last week, come after Meta said on Thursday that it was laying off employees across the company as part of a series of different restructurings.

“Today, a few teams at Meta are making changes to ensure resources are aligned with their long-term strategic goals and location strategy,” Meta spokesperson Tracy Clayton said in a statement.

“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.”

Meta declined to say how many staff were laid off.

The cuts affected Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook, and Reality Labs, which houses Meta’s virtual reality and metaverse initiatives.

Last year, Meta lay off around 20,000 employees in successive rounds of cuts in an effort to reverse a year of revenue declines and stagnant user growth, which Zuckerberg dubbed the company’s “year of efficiency.” The company’s shares (META) have up roughly 80% since this time last year.

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