Meta is absent from SF Pride this year, as tech industry retreats from public support of LGBTQ+
Parade goers hold Pride flags during the annual Pride Parade in San Francisco on Sunday, June 29, 2024.
Minh Connors | San Francisco Chronicle | Hearst Newspapers | Getty Images
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is staying mum these days when it comes to the LGBTQ+ community. It wasn't always that way.
San Francisco Pride Executive Director Suzanne Ford told CNBC she remembers when Zuckerberg personally called the nonprofit to ensure that the company then known as Facebook had a spot at the annual event. As the world's largest LGBTQ+ parade, the SF Pride event has become a symbol representing advocacy and social justice for members of the community.
In 2015, SF Pride was prohibiting Facebook from marching at the event because of the company's policies that required people to use their legal names on the social network, Ford said. Members of the LGBTQ+ community were worried that bad actors were exploiting the company's account policy by reporting transgender Facebook users and others who no longer identify by their legal names.
After Facebook updated the policy, Zuckerberg called SF Pride's then-executive director George Ridgely to ask him that Facebook be included in the parade, Ford said.
The relationship between SF Pride and Meta has since splintered.
SF Pride formally cut ties with Meta in March after the company enacted a number of new policies, including a scaling back of internal programs designed to increase hiring of diverse candidates, which CNBC reported in January.
Meta also eased content-moderation guidelines as part of its policy changes, which multiple current and former employees told CNBC could instigate more online abuse toward marginalized communities, including members of the LGBTQ+ community. Zuckerberg has also made an effort to curry favor with President Donald Trump, who signed an executive order in January calling for investigations into companies that support diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, initiatives.
Since the organization's decision to end its relationship with Meta, Ford said that she hasn't heard from Zuckerberg or anybody that SF Pride used to have a relationship with at the company.
Meta will not be taking part in this year's SF Pride festival, set to take place this weekend at San Francisco's Civic Center. The annual parade will be held on Sunday, according to the event's website. The theme for 2025 is "Queer Joy is Resistance."
"Why was it so important for Mark back then, and why is it so important for Mark now not to be associated with San Francisco Pride?" Ford said.
Meta declined to comment.
FILE PHOTO: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg marched with 700 Facebook employees In San Francisco's Gay Pride Parade on June 30, 2013.
Kobby Dagan | VWPics |AP
Meta isn't the only company distancing itself from SF Pride. Other major companies like Anheuser-Busch, Comcast, Diageo and Nissan are also no longer sponsoring SF Pride after years of support, CNBC previously reported.
Given that SF Pride shares a geographic center with Meta and so much of the tech industry, the lack of support for the LGBTQ+ community after years of public trumpeting cuts especially deep, Ford said. Google-parent Alphabet has also stopped sponsoring SF Pride this year, she said.
San Francisco represents both the "home of innovation" for the tech industry and the "home and the birthplace of the LGBTQ community in the United States," said Ford, adding that it's no mistake why so much innovation comes from the region.
"Creative and wonderful people want to come to San Francisco — it's not the drinking water — but they come here because you can be yourself here," she said. "You can love who you love, you can be who you are and you don't have to march to any certain drumbeat."
Tech companies represent a little over 15% of SF Pride's overall sponsorship funding for the event. The organization's budget is down $180,000 from their target because of a drop of overall corporate sponsors, a spokesperson told CNBC on Wednesday.
There are still large tech sponsorships from the likes of Apple, Amazon and Salesforce, but otherwise, there's a palpable silence from the tech industry this year about supporting LGBTQ+ causes, Ford said.
For instance, Ford said that in previous years, her time was often spent speaking to tech companies' employee resource groups in the lead-up to SF Pride, but she has yet to receive any invitation of that kind this year.
Ford said she also hopes that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who married his partner Oliver Mulherin in 2024, will be more vocal about supporting the LGBTQ+ community and SF Pride. Ford said she briefly met Altman a few months ago to discuss SF Pride, but she has not heard from him since.
"One would think that OpenAI here in San Francisco, that they would think that they should be supporting the fabric of the community," said Ford, adding that the lack of support from OpenAI and Altman is "painful because Sam is a member of our community, and he certainly has resources."
OpenAI declined to comment.
A parade float during the annual Pride Parade in San Francisco on Sunday, June 29, 2024.
Minh Connors | San Francisco Chronicle | Hearst Newspapers | Getty Images
Prominent tech companies like Meta, Amazon and Uber have posted rainbow-coated messages on their websites and social media accounts in years past to show support for Pride Month, which is observed in June, but this year, tech companies' online presence are noticeably less colorful.
The threat of a lawsuit coupled with the possibility of a public tongue-lashing by Trump, other politicians and social media has caused many tech leaders and corporate executives to stay quiet on LGBTQ+ issues, said Amy Dufrane, CEO of human resource certification organization HRCI.
"Anything that touches the space of DEI, we're seeing companies pull back from that out of fear," she said.
Executives who support LGBTQ+ and related DEI issues are doing so under the radar to avoid drawing attention, Dufrane said. For example, a spokesperson for SF Pride said that two tech companies have recently donated to the organization but want to remain anonymous. Ford declined to name the tech companies.
"Sometimes people in our community assume there's no good, there's no one at these corporations that cares about us," Ford said. "Sometimes they do, and they don't want the consequences of caring about us."
Ford said that the door is still open for Zuckerberg to contact SF Pride, but ultimately, it would be up to the nonprofit's board to decide the next steps. Ford said that Zuckerberg would likely have to make a "commitment to some things that I don't think that he would be willing to do."
"We have got to leave space for people to change, we got to leave space like if at Meta there's a leadership change or they come to the realization that this is just bad, the track they're going down is wrong," Ford said. "I want to leave space for them to come and have a discussion with us and to show us that they are in line with our values."
Disclosure: Comcast owns NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC.
