Google and Meta used to champion DEI efforts. Why Big Tech is pulling back
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More than a decade ago, outcries about the lack of diversity in the tech industry reverberated across major Silicon Valley companies from Facebook to Google.
Women and minorities spoke out about feeling out of place in male-dominated professions, civil rights activists urged businesses to do more and tech workers like Tracy Chou, who was a software engineer at Pinterest at the time, pushed companies to release diversity data.
“There was already some movement in that direction, at least a feeling like we should do this,” said Chou, who wrote a viral Medium post in 2013 about the lack of female engineers. “What I happened to crystallize was a line of thinking that really resonated with the more data-driven side of the industry.”
For diversity advocates like Chou, the tide has now turned. Facing more political pressure and legal risks during President Trump’s second administration, tech companies that previously championed diversity including Google, Meta (Facebook’s parent company) and Amazon are scaling back, scrapping or rethinking their diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts.
Google is the latest company to roll back DEI efforts amid more political pressure to do so under President Trump.
It’s part of a broader retrenchment across the business community. About 20% of companies in the Standard & Poor’s 100 have retreated from DEI commitments since Trump was elected, according to a Bloomberg News analysis. Those include Target Corp., McDonald’s Corp. and Disney.
Trump and Elon Musk, who spent more than $200 million to help elect the president to a second term, have been vocal critics of DEI programs. In a fact sheet about Trump’s executive order, the White House said many corporations use DEI as “an excuse for biased and unlawful employment practices,” sending a message to businesses that they could get sued. Companies such as Google and Amazon also contract with federal agencies.
“They’re reading the room, especially with Trump and Elon running the country,” said Chou, now the chief executive of Block Party, a tool that helps users combat online harassment.
Corporate pledges to fight racism including from Musk’s company Tesla heightened after the 2020 police murder of George Floyd, sparking massive protests against police brutality.
But legal threats emerged in 2023 after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down race-based affirmative action in college admissions. As tech companies cut thousands of jobs, the massive cuts also hit DEI teams.
Spending on DEI roles at S&P 500 companies started to fall in 2022 as mass layoffs swept the tech industry, data from Revelio Labs show. In November 2024, these businesses spent an estimated $1.3 billion on DEI roles, down 10% compared to the same month in 2022.
From December 2022 to December 2024, tech companies including Google’s parent company Alphabet, Netflix and Amazon spent less on roles that promoted diversity and inclusion.
During this period, Tesla’s DEI spending was down by 84% and Meta’s DEI spending declined by 53%, according to Revelio Labs, which analyzes data from various sources including online profiles on sites like LinkedIn or Jobcase.
President Trump and Mark Zuckerberg, the leader of the world’s largest social network, have butted heads in the past. Now Zuckerberg is reshaping Meta for the Trump era.
Tech companies have pointed to legal risks in internal memos about why they’re rethinking how they approach their DEI programs.
“They wanted to keep President Trump on their good side, because they don’t want to deal with any legal ramifications from the federal government,” said Jared Slater, partner at Ervin Cohen & Jessup.
The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Meta’s Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, a former Trump critic who also said previously that improving diversity in tech is important, has in recent months aligned himself with the president and talked about the benefits of “masculine energy.” The company told its employees in an internal memo that the legal and policy landscape surrounding DEI changed and pointed to Supreme Court decisions.
“The term ‘DEI’ has also become charged, in part because it is understood by some as a practice that suggests preferential treatment of some groups over others,” said Janelle Gale, Meta’s head of human resources, in an internal memo.
The company said it wanted to serve everyone and would no longer use its “diversity slate approach” in which hiring managers consider candidates from underrepresented backgrounds when interviewing for an open role.
Meta also ended representation goals for women and minorities, a program to source supplies from diverse-owned businesses and scrapped its DEI teams. Maxine Williams, Meta’s chief diversity officer, became the vice president of accessibility and engagement.
Websites for Meta’s unconscious bias training and TechPrep, a resource hub for underrepresented people and their parents to learn about computer science, are no longer online.
Meta declined to comment but confirmed the memo, first published by Axios.
Walt Disney Co. said it would change an internal performance standard focused on diversity and inclusion for executive compensation, saying it would focus on how the initiatives helped the business.
Google said this month it was reevaluating its DEI programs “following recent court decisions and executive orders on this topic.” The company said it would no longer set hiring targets tied to improving diversity after previously setting a goal of increasing by 30% the proportion of “leadership representation of underrepresented groups” by 2025.
And Amazon told its employees that it’s “winding down” certain programs after evaluating their “effectiveness, impact and ROI [return on investment]” but didn’t specify which ones.
In a December memo to employees reviewed by The Times, the company’s Vice President of inclusive experiences and technology Candi Castleberry told employees that the company is focused on “programs with proven outcomes” while also aiming to “foster a more truly inclusive culture.” Amazon shared the memo.
Amazon Studios — which announced a series of ambitious inclusion goals in June 2021 — also has been making changes. Last September, the Culver City-based studio removed a public-facing inclusion playbook from its website along with a goal that films or series with three or more people in above-line roles such as directors and producers included at least 30% women and 30% members of an underrepresented group.
“We’ve said from the beginning that our efforts to ensure diverse and inclusive storytelling would be fluid and change over time,” Amazon spokesperson Brad Glasser said in a statement. He added that the company strives to “tell the very best stories, while empowering diverse voices in our storytelling wherever possible.”
Meanwhile, some tech companies such as Apple are fighting back against anti-DEI proposals from conservative shareholders. The National Center for Public Policy Research, a conservative think tank, is asking that Apple consider ending its DEI programs, policies, departments and goals.
“The risks to the company’s bottom line stem from potentially getting sued by individuals for discrimination, potentially getting legal action from the government for violating civil rights law, and then the market backlash,” said Stefan Padfield, executive director of the center’s Free Enterprise Project.
Apple recommended that shareholders reject the proposal at the company’s annual shareholder meeting on Feb. 25.
Apple didn’t respond to a request for comment, but the company said in a document to shareholders that the anti-DEI proposal was “unnecessary” partly because its board and management oversee legal and regulatory risks.
Netflix has remained committed to DEI after Trump’s executive order, stating in its annual report that a “major focus” is “fostering a work environment that is culturally diverse, inclusive and equitable” because it wants more people and cultures to see themselves reflected on screen.
Amazon Studios announced goals to increase the number of women and members of underrepresented racial or ethnic groups on series and films.
The Los Gatos-based streaming giant said in its annual report released in January that it educates its recruiters on how to hire more inclusively.
A Netflix spokesperson didn’t respond to a request for comment.
“What we need to do in this moment in time is to stand up, to speak up, to be strategic and to keep moving forward,” said Vernā Myers, former Netflix vice president of inclusion strategy and founder of the Vernā Myers Co., a consultancy on diversity, equity and inclusion. “We can’t allow this kind of bullying to make us so fearful that we are paralyzed and that we draw back from our core values.”
The backlash against DEI is not only affecting workplace culture, but nonprofits focused on recruiting more women and minorities into the tech industry.
Last year, Women Who Code, a nonprofit that got its start in California, closed because of a lack of funding. AnitaB.org, which brings together women in tech at its annual Grace Hopper Celebration, cut its workforce in 2024 and pointed to a downturn in corporate DEI investments.
Some diversity advocates like Freada Kapor Klein, co-chair of the Kapor Center, question whether some tech companies ever took DEI that seriously.
Tech giants seemed more open to diversity efforts in times of talent shortages because it helps open up a pool of potential hires, she said. Now they’re rolling back DEI efforts amid layoffs and a political climate in which Republicans hold more power.
“It is now fashionable to be anti-DEI. It’s now fashionable to talk about masculine energy. It’s now fashionable … to align oneself with MAGA interests,” she said. “So you have to kind of ask, what is it that people actually, really and truly believe?”
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