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Outbyte Driver Updater FREEFix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →Outbyte PC Repair FREEClear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →In February 2022, during a company-wide virtual meeting held as Meta’s stock was falling, Mark Zuckerberg reportedly joked that his red eyes were from a scratched cornea—not sadness about the company’s losses. That explanation was attributed to Bloomberg in later coverage; the accounts do not provide a meeting recording or transcript to verify his exact words.
What was reported about Zuckerberg’s red eyes?
Futurism’s Noor Al-Sibai reported on February 4, 2022, that Zuckerberg appeared red-eyed at a company-wide meeting after Meta’s stock selloff. The article, citing Bloomberg, said he joked that if he started crying, it would be because he had scratched his cornea. Futurism characterized the remark as possibly an attempt at humor. Read Futurism’s account.
Axios also attributed the anecdote to Bloomberg. In an article updated February 9, 2022, Scott Rosenberg described Zuckerberg as joking that the redness came from a scratched cornea, rather than grief over the losses. Read Axios’s account.
Was the scratched cornea explanation confirmed?
No. The two accounts reviewed relay Bloomberg’s reporting, but neither includes a recording or transcript of the meeting. The explanation should therefore be treated as an attributed anecdote, not an independently verified statement or a confirmed medical diagnosis. The available pages also do not establish Zuckerberg’s exact wording, so paraphrases should not be presented as verbatim quotations.
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What was happening at Meta at the time?
The meeting took place amid a sharp decline in Meta’s stock and after the company’s February 2022 earnings news. Axios reported that the results showed Facebook’s first-ever decline in daily active users and forecast headwinds from Apple’s privacy changes. It also noted Meta had said Reality Labs had spent $10 billion. Those details describe the situation reported in 2022, not Meta’s present-day performance or spending.
Futurism additionally reported, citing Bloomberg and an anonymous source, that Zuckerberg urged employees to focus more effort on Instagram Reels amid competition from TikTok. That, too, is reported meeting context rather than a detail confirmed by a public transcript.
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