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Zuckerberg Says Meta Underestimated TikTok in Leaked Recording

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, says the company was slow in recognizing TikTok’s massive growth because it wasn’t seen as a true social media platform.

The stunning admission was made by Zuckerberg in a leaked recording obtained by Business Insider. The Instagram and Facebook chief was speaking to employees during an “all-hands” meeting held on Thursday.

“When I look back on TikTok, I think part of the reason why we were slow to it is because we didn’t think TikTok was social,” Zuckerberg says in the recording. “We looked at it and we thought, ‘Oh, this is like, a little more like YouTube’.”

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Business Insider notes that Zuckerberg gave the response to a question asked by an employee who wondered whether Meta’s current focus on artificial intelligence might mean the company will be looking the other way when the next social media trend comes along — like it did with TikTok.

Meta platforms, particularly Instagram, wound up copying TikTok when it began aggressively pushing Reels and fundamentally moved Instagram away from a picture-based network toward video. Currently, Meta is offering popular TikTok creators deals up to $300,000 to post Reels on Instagram.

Zuckerberg explains that Meta initially didn’t understand TikTok’s social appeal, not realizing that users were sending each other videos via private messages; something that has become popular on Instagram.

“Because we were too dismissive up front, it wasn’t just about people commenting in the feed. It was about people seeing stuff in their feed and then sharing it into message threads,” Zuckerberg says, per Business Insider.

Zuckerberg also acknowledged TikTok’s current travails in the U.S. saying “We don’t have control of what’s going to happen to TikTok.”

“We have a lot of competitors, but they’re an important one. So, who’s gonna own TikTok at the end of the year? What’s gonna happen? I mean, that’s a pretty big deal, something that’s a card that we get to turn over.”

‘Intense Year Ahead’

In the leaked recording of the meeting, Business Insider reports that Zuckerberg declared 2025 will be “intense” for Meta while addressing some of the controversies that have recently surrounded the company including getting rid of fact-checkers.

The Zuck apparently predicts that this year, a “highly intelligent and personalized” digital assistant will reach one billion users.

“I think whoever gets there first is going to have a long-term, durable advantage towards building one of the most important products in history,” Zuckerberg says in the recording, per Business Insider while also stating his belief that AI agents will start working for Meta: writing software.

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