Rudolph Angler Meta recently dismissed around 24 employees from its Los Angeles office for repeatedly misusing a $25 dinner voucher. One of the affected employees reportedly earned $400,000 annually.
Meta provides meal credits to employees via Grubhub or Uber Eats, offering $20 for breakfast, $25 for lunch, and $25 for dinner. However, instead of ordering dinner to the office, some employees allegedly used the credits to buy items like toothpaste and wine glasses or had meals delivered to their homes. Others pooled their meal credits.
While the employees who misused the vouchers consistently were let go, those with only occasional misuse were issued warnings.
One employee, who made $400,000 per year, described the experience of being terminated over a meal credit as “surreal” in a post on an anonymous messaging platform.
In a related layoff wave that began Wednesday, Meta affected teams across Instagram, WhatsApp, and Reality Labs, although the total number impacted is not specified.
Despite these cuts, Meta reported significant revenue growth of 22%, reaching $39.07 billion in the second quarter of the year. CEO Mark Zuckerberg, in a recent earnings call, highlighted that Meta AI is expected to become “the most used AI assistant in the world by the end of the year.”