Mark Zuckerberg’s charity U-turns, ends DEI efforts 

Mark Zuckerberg’s charity has eliminated its DEI programs and efforts just weeks after assuring staff it would continue supporting DEI efforts, The Guardian reports. 

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), co-founded by Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan, will end internal DEI programs and no longer provide “social advocacy funding,” which provided grants for racial equity and immigration reforms. In a staff email obtained by The Guardian, Marc Malandro, the COO of CZI, said the organization will instead issue grants for “biology and AI.” 

CZI has also canceled its Science Diversity Leadership Awards, which gave out $1.5 million to researchers, and ended its Diverse Slate Practice, which mandated that diverse applications be interviewed for all open positions. 

“Given the shifting regulatory and legal landscape, we will no longer have a Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility team at CZI,” Malandro wrote in an email to employees. 

This is a complete reversal of what CZI just told employees. After Meta announced the elimination of its DEI programs, some employees were concerned and asked if CZI would remain committed to its values, The Guardian reported earlier in February. Mark Gundacker, who leads HR at CZI, told employees then that the changes at Meta don’t impact operations at CZI. 

But now Malandro wrote in the email announcing the changes that the changes were to help CZI “align with our focus as a science philanthropy.” 

CZI did not respond to our request for comment.