- A former Meta executive testified that the company secretly aided China’s AI and military advancement while censoring dissidents.
- Meta provided China with AI briefings under "Project Aldrin," boosting Beijing’s military capabilities.
- Mark Zuckerberg was accused of prioritizing profit over U.S. security, shifting allegiances for business gain.
- Meta attempted to silence the whistleblower with legal threats and financial penalties.
- The revelations raise concerns about Big Tech’s loyalty, prompting bipartisan calls for investigations and antitrust action.
In bombshell congressional testimony that could redefine Silicon Valley’s fraught relationship with Beijing, former Meta executive Sarah Wynn-Williams accused the tech giant of systematically undermining U.S. national security to court favor with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee on April 9, Wynn-Williams—once Facebook’s director of global policy—revealed how Mark Zuckerberg’s company secretly briefed China on advanced AI technology, censored dissidents at Beijing’s request, and built an $18 billion business while misleading Congress and the American public. The revelations, met with bipartisan outrage, expose what critics call a glaring hypocrisy: Silicon Valley elites preaching American values while enriching adversaries.
Lying to Congress and the American public
“We are engaged in a high-stakes AI arms race against China,” Wynn-Williams declared in her opening statement. “During my time at Meta, company executives lied about what they were doing with the Chinese Communist Party to employees, shareholders, Congress, and the American public.”
Her testimony, corroborated by internal documents and her memoir Careless People, alleges Meta began providing CCP officials with strategic briefings on AI as early as 2015 under “Project Aldrin,” a covert initiative to enter China’s market. These disclosures, she claimed, directly aided Beijing’s military AI ambitions, including its controversial DeepSeek model. Shockingly, Wynn-Williams said Meta even developed censorship tools for the CCP and deleted the account of exiled billionaire dissident Guo Wengui after pressure from Beijing. Meta denies the claims, insisting it removed Guo’s account for violating policies against sharing personal data—a justification met with skepticism by lawmakers.
Zuckerberg’s shifting "costumes"
Wynn-Williams reserved her sharpest criticism for Zuckerberg, portraying him as a shape-shifting opportunist. “This is a man who wears many different costumes,” she testified. “When I was there, he wanted the president of China to name his first child, he was learning Mandarin, he was censoring to his heart’s content. Now his new costume is MMA fighting or… free speech. We don’t know what the next costume is gonna be, but it will be something different. It’s whatever gets him closest to power.”
The timing of her claims is explosive. As Zuckerberg and other tech CEOs now reportedly seek favor with President Trump’s reelected administration—through Mar-a-Lago visits and donations—the whistleblower’s account suggests their loyalty lies not with America, but with profit. “The greatest trick Mark Zuckerberg ever pulled,” she said, “was wrapping the American flag around himself… while he spent the last decade building an $18 billion business [in China].”
Silencing dissent, endangering security
Meta’s response to Wynn-Williams has only fueled accusations of authoritarianism. The company secured an emergency ruling to block her from promoting Careless People, invoking an eight-year-old separation agreement. Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) revealed Meta threatened her with $50,000 penalties for each public mention of the company—even truthful testimony. “Facebook is attempting her total and complete financial ruin,” Hawley charged. Meta clarified the fines applied only to contract breaches, not congressional testimony, but the optics validated long-held conservative concerns about Big Tech’s suppression of dissent.
Democrats joined the condemnation. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) called Meta’s tactics “the height of hypocrisy for a supposed free speech champion.” Meanwhile, Wynn-Williams warned that Meta’s actions have tangible consequences: “There’s a straight line you can draw from these briefings to the recent revelations that China is developing AI models for military use, relying on Meta’s Llama model.”
A reckoning for Big Tech?
The scandal lands as the FTC prepares to force Meta to divest Instagram and WhatsApp in a landmark antitrust trial. Hawley pledged a “full-scale investigation” into whether Meta violated U.S. privacy laws and a 2012 FTC consent decree. “The American people are going to be pretty outraged that Mark Zuckerberg sold out America to China,” Blumenthal added.
For now, Wynn-Williams’ defiance—despite Meta’s legal threats—has struck a chord. Her book surged to Amazon’s Top 10, and her testimony echoes prior whistleblowers like Frances Haugen. Yet the stakes are higher than corporate accountability: with AI dominance critical to global power, Meta’s alleged collusion with China underscores a dire need to realign Silicon Valley’s priorities with national security. If Congress fails to act, the consequences could haunt America for decades.
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