What’s the old adage? Take a nerd and give him a billion-dollar tech empire, he’ll think he rules the world… And in this case, he basically does. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg runs three of the most popular social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. He’s spent the last month buddying up to Donald Trump ahead of his inauguration next week and is now making wildly ironic statements about the need for companies to embrace their ‘masculine energy’ – which he of course knows tons about.
‘I think a lot of the corporate world is pretty culturally neutered,’ he said on the Joe Rogan podcast. ‘Masculine energy is good, and obviously, society has plenty of that, but I think corporate culture was really trying to get away from it…I think having a culture that celebrates the aggression a bit more has its own merits that are really positive.’
Interesting, is he referring to the culture at the 93% of globally listed companies that have male CEOs? Or on the three quarters of board seats at large and mid-sized businesses that are occupied by men? Or even just in his industry, the 75% of the tech workforce that are men – who also make up 89% of executive roles?
Surely not – surely the third richest man in the world who made his fortune off tech genius doesn’t genuinely believe that with a workforce made up almost entirely of men in leadership roles, femininity is the driving cultural force. He only needs to look at that list by the way, which we’re sure he does regularly, to see that men make up 84 of the top 100 places.
The implication of what he’s saying is, to many, that femininity is somehow bad for business. And he’s just reflecting the wider view for 85% of the population – according to research by the United Nations Development Programme, nearly half the world’s people believe men make better politician leaders, and 4 in 10 believe men make better business executives. Why? The report covered that too – 90% of men and women hold fundamental biases against women.
But let’s look at the actual facts on women in business, shall we? According to research by Leadership Circle, women make more effective leaders across every management and age level.
Feminine leadership, or rather energy if we’re talking like Zuckerberg, is beneficial because women score higher in vital competencies for leadership – which include relating, self-awareness, authenticity, systems awareness and achieving.
Female leaders, the report states, tend to build better relationships and play as a team – which has great yields. According to another report, organizations with at least 30% women in leadership roles are 12x more likely to be in the top 20% for financial performance.
It appears then that Zuckerberg’s claim is based more on anecdotal experiences and emotion rather than the cold-hard facts – is that the kind of masculine energy he’s talking about?
Amid making rage-generating statements about masculinity at work, Zuckerberg has also been making concerning changes to Meta as a whole. Last week, it was announced that they were removing independent factcheckers from Facebook, instead replacing them with 'community notes' which are written by users (as exists now on X) and lessening restrictions around hate speech.
Where Facebook and Instagram previously banned derogatory statements about protected groups, they have since updated their policy and deleted those clauses – now, you can compare women to ‘property’ and ‘household objections’ without restriction, and you can claim there’s ‘no such thing’ as gay or trans people. New clauses have also been added which allow for anti-trans rhetoric, with one reading ‘We do allow allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation.’
It's all just in time for Trump’s presidency, where Zuckerberg’s main competitor – in social media, tech and wealth – Elon Musk is currently out-earning him in the incumbent president’s favours too. It’s going to be an interesting (read: terrifying) four years, that’s for sure.