In the past year, all sorts of companies have retreated from their commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion, from “masculine” brands like John Deere and Harley-Davidson to massive companies like Walmart and McDonald’s. Many of these moves have followed public pressure and boycotts (namely a social media campaign mounted by conservative activist Robby Starbuck), but have also been catalyzed by a shifting legal and political climate after the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in 2023.

Now some of the biggest players in the tech industry—which has long touted the value of diversity, equity, and inclusion—are making similar cuts to their diversity initiatives. Within the past few days, both Meta and Amazon have confirmed significant changes to their DEI programs. These decisions may seem, in part, politically motivated: Last week, Meta also relaxed its hate speech policies, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg met with President-elect Donald Trump.

But as Fast Company has previously reported, the tech industry has been quietly divesting from DEI work for some time now, as layoffs have targeted those teams and companies have failed to make meaningful progress on the commitments they made in 2020. Large tech employers like Google and Meta have chipped away at their DEI work in recent years, trimming headcount and scaling down programs focused on the recruitment and career development of underrepresented workers.

At the same time, some of the changes companies are making to their corporate diversity programs seem designed to rebrand the work and move away from the language of DEI, which has become a political football and target of lawsuits by right-wing activists. Since 2023, companies like J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs have made changes to their DEI policies in response to the threat of legal action; others have stopped using certain DEI terms like equity. Meta acknowledged this was driving some of its DEI changes when the company noted that the “legal and policy landscape surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the United States is changing,” per an internal memo obtained by Axios.

(Meta, Apple, Google, and Microsoft declined to comment on the record when Fast Company asked about current or planned changes to DEI programs. Meta has confirmed that the company is dissolving many of its DEI initiatives.)

Here’s a closer look at the scope of the recent DEI cuts, and what they could mean for the future of diversity work at Big Tech companies:

According to Axios, Meta will no longer have a team that explicitly works on DEI. Chief diversity officer Maxine Williams—who has been at the company for more than a decade—will move into a new role on the accessibility and engagement team. In an internal memo, HR chief Janelle Gale wrote, “The term ‘DEI’ has . . . become charged, in part because it is understood by some as a practice that suggests preferential treatment of some groups over others.” Gale also noted that the company will be revamping its DEI training programs to focus instead on “how to apply fair and consistent practices that mitigate bias for all, no matter your background.”

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