In a move that could be seen as tone-deaf, Mark Zuckerberg’s superyacht recently docked in Seattle, just days after Meta laid off a significant number of employees in the area.
The billionaire’s luxurious $300 million yacht made its way into the harbor on Tuesday, a stark reminder of the 1,400 local jobs that vanished shortly before its arrival.
Dubbed the ‘Launchpad’, the 390-foot yacht received a less-than-warm welcome, with boos and jeers echoing from the shores of Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood as it came to port.
Although Zuckerberg himself was not present, one bystander was reported to have shouted demands for the tech mogul to “pay some taxes,” according to GeekWire.
The yacht’s arrival also sparked a wave of criticism online, with social media users lambasting Zuckerberg. One user went so far as to label him “just another tech bro who can’t read the room.”
Another commentator on X pointed out the unfortunate timing, saying, “Zuck’s boat arrives in Seattle the day Meta slashes their workforce by 20 percent in the area. You can’t make this stuff up.”
Local reporter Lewis Kamp quipped: ‘Let me guess: The name of the boat is, “Let Them Eat Cake”?’
The boat’s appearance came days after Meta slashed 1,395 jobs in King County, Washington, according to public notice filings online.
Mark Zuckerberg has rubbed salt into the wounds of hundreds of Meta employees who were recently laid off in Seattle by parking his superyacht in the city’s harbor, as shown above
Named the ‘Launchpad’, the 390-foot boat was met with a round of boos and heckles as it docked beside Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood
Meta founder Zuckerberg’s $300 million vessel pulled up on Tuesday, casting a shadow over the metro area in Washington state where 1,400 employees had just been made redundant
The local cuts were part of a nationwide bloodbath which has seen Meta threaten to cut more than 20 percent of its workforce as it pours billions into AI instead.
Potential cuts could affect over 15,000 of the tech giant’s employees, according to sources cited by Reuters.
Senior executives have reportedly told leaders across the company to begin planning ways to reduce headcount as Meta pushes deeper into AI and automation.
While the exact scale of the layoffs has not yet been finalized, if carried out, the cuts would mark the company’s biggest job purge since Zuckerberg launched his ‘year of efficiency’ in 2022, when more than 21,000 roles were eliminated.
Meta employed about 79,000 workers at the end of last year.
A spokesperson for the company told the Daily Mail that the claims were ‘speculative reporting about theoretical approaches.’
The Daily Mail has reached out to Meta for comment.
The looming superyacht’s appearance was also loudly condemned by people on social media
The redundancies at Meta came as Zuckerberg poured vast sums into new data centers, research teams and powerful AI models.
Meta has 31 data centers across the globe, with server space to process and store the billions of messages, posts, and images circulated on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp every single second of the day.
In June 2025, the company invested $14.3 billion in Scale AI, a software company that was poached by Meta along with its CEO Alexandr Wang.
Meta revealed in its fourth-quarter earnings report in January that it expects to spend between $115 billion and $135 billion on AI this year.
When combined with planned investments from Amazon, Alphabet, and Microsoft, total AI spending by the four tech giants could reach around $700 billion.
Despite reports of planned layoffs from Reuters, the company’s push to improve efficiency through its AI tools appears to be paying off.
Investors reacted positively, with Meta’s stock rising three percent to 632 in early trading this morning.
Meta is not alone in linking artificial intelligence to layoffs.
Amazon cut around 16,000 jobs in January as it restructures while investing heavily in AI.
It marked the second major round of layoffs in just three months after slashing 14,000 roles in October.
Zuckerberg did not appear to be on board the yacht. He attended the 2026 Met Gala celebrating ‘Costume Art’ with his wife Priscilla Chan on May 4 in New York City
Zuckerberg has enjoyed close relations with President Trump. The pair sat together during a dinner for tech leaders in the State Dining Room of the White House on September 4, 2025
Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey is cutting half the jobs at his payments firm, Block, as it shifts toward smaller teams powered by automation.
Dorsey stated on X in late February that this move was meant to take a ‘hard, clear action now’ rather than opting to slowly reduce jobs and risk lowering morale among workers.
Software company Atlassian also announced plans to cut about 10 percent of its workforce to focus on AI.
Across the US, more than 12,000 layoffs this year have already been tied directly to artificial intelligence, according to consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
