Meta Livestream Hijacked as Employee Calls Top AI Executive a "Piece of Sh*t" Amid Reorg Fallout

A Meta employee hijacked a livestreamed internal meeting this week and launched into a profanity-laced tirade aimed at a senior AI executive, according to WIRED. The interruption, which occurred during a call attended by thousands of staffers, highlights growing frustration inside the company’s recently formed Applied AI unit.

WIRED reports that the employee briefly interjected to complain about "being the company’s bitch," and urged colleagues to contact a Meta AI leader directly and “tell him that he’s a piece of shit.” The outburst was audible to the large audience on the call and quickly became a focal point for broader employee sentiment.

The Applied AI group, created earlier this year to centralize support for Meta’s artificial intelligence efforts, has faced mounting internal dissatisfaction. Current employees who spoke with WIRED described the organization’s structure and assignments as demoralizing and poorly aligned with the technical work many expected when they joined the company.

“It’s literally the gulag,” one employee said, adding that staffers feel they suddenly have “zero purpose in life,” interact little with colleagues, and are left with repetitive weekly tasks.

Many staffers told WIRED that much of the work—primarily producing testing materials and other inputs to evaluate AI models—is not technically challenging and lacks creative or engineering rigor. Several sources described the assignments as “soul-crushing,” and one said “almost all” team members are unhappy.

Separately, more than 1,600 Meta employees have signed a petition opposing an internal initiative that tracks certain workplace activity to generate AI training data, underscoring broader concerns about how the company collects and uses internal data.

In an internal memo obtained by WIRED, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged mistakes in the recent restructuring and pledged that there would be no additional mass layoffs this year. He also outlined measures intended to improve morale, including smaller management spans, increased funding for team events, and restoring assigned desks for many employees.

Meta Chief Product Officer Chris Cox also addressed staff during an all-Instagram meeting this week, describing the last several months as “difficult” and “brutal” and comparing employee experiences to “running a marathon in the middle of a hailstorm.” He summed up the tone candidly: “It’s like, what the f*ck.”

The incident and the surrounding grievances highlight the challenge Meta faces as it reorganizes its AI operations: balancing rapid operational changes and data needs with employee morale, meaningful work, and trust.

Source: Reporting by WIRED; first noted by Mediaite.