Mashable : Meta, Facebook's parent company, is under fire from workers after it was revealed that executives paid large bonuses despite the firm's rough year, which included layoffs and a drop in stock price. During a virtual Q&A session with CEO Mark Zuckerberg, employees raised the issue of excessive payouts by interrogating him about the bonuses.

The Wall Street Journal reports that some workers have wondered why the leadership team was praised for their work despite being accountable for the decisions that resulted in layoffs. A worker inquired, "Where is the accountability?"

Six executives, including the CFO Susan Li, the CPO Christopher Cox, the COO Javier Olivan, the CTO Andrew Bosworth, the Strategy Officer David Whener, and the former COO Sheryl Sandberg, received incentives. The maximum incentive offered to a single executive was $942,214.

The corporation stated in a filing that bonuses were calculated based on individual performance, with a target percentage of 75%. The executives significantly outperformed expectations, resulting in six-figure incentives.

During the Q&A session, Zuckerberg defended the incentives by stating that certain executives had expanded their responsibilities and assumed new roles. His response, however, was received with criticism from the employees, who deemed it to be "shallow" and "patronizing."

A lot of people are furious about this, both inside and outside the organization. They want to know who is responsible for this. Nonetheless, Meta is not the only tech behemoth to offer generous bonuses during layoffs. Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet and Google, received nearly $226 million in 2022, and all five other top Alphabet executives also received compensation in the millions.

The disclosure of bonuses comes at a time when regulators are increasing their scrutiny of Meta's business practices and its stock price has been volatile.