By Paresh Dave,Maxwell Zeff
Publication Date: 2026-06-12 23:45:00
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s internal announcement on Friday about a “major” company-wide AI hackathon next month quickly sparked frustration and disbelief among employees.
In internal messages seen by WIRED, some workers wrote that the added responsibilities of the tech giant’s recent mass layoffs had left them little time to take on such outside jobs. Others said they felt dissuaded from taking part because they felt morale was poor and trust in management was waning across the company.
“I’m literally busy keeping my team running,” one employee wrote on Friday. “I have no incentive to participate, let alone the time.”
In a post shared with Meta’s roughly 70,000 employees, Zuckerberg described the hackathon as a way for employees to build camaraderie at a time of widespread internal unrest. Ime Archibong, vice president of product management at Meta, later shared more details about the event, which he…
