Whistleblower tells Senate committee that Meta undermined US national security to cozy up to China
A whistleblower on Wednesday told congressional lawmakers that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and other executives lied to Congress as Meta actively tried to help China develop artificial intelligence in an effort to win favor with Beijing.
Sarah Wynn-Williams, who detailed her experience at Meta in the scathing memoir "Careless People," testified before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism that she witnessed Zuckerberg and other executives "repeatedly undermine US national security and betray American values," the New York Post reported.
Wynn-Williams served as the director of Global Public Policy at Facebook, now Meta, for nearly seven years starting in 2011. She said company executives "did these things in secret to win favor with Beijing and build an $18 billion dollar business in China."
Meta allegedly helped China develop advanced artificial intelligence to help outcompete American companies, she said.
"We are engaged in a high-stakes AI arms race against China, and 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," Wynn-Williams will said in her opening statement.
Despite attempts by Meta to discredit her work and stop her from talking, Wynn-Williams' book shot to the top 10 on Amazon’s best-seller list.
In a statement to Fox News Digital, a Meta spokesperson said Wynn-Williams' testimony was "divorced from reality and riddled with false claims."
"While Mark Zuckerberg himself was public about our interest in offering our services in China and details were widely reported beginning over a decade ago, the fact is this: we do not operate our services in China today," the statement said.
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Among her allegations, Wynn-Williams said Meta's AI model "has contributed significantly to Chinese advances in AI technologies like DeepSeek." In addition, Wynn-Williams also said Meta deleted the Facebook account of a prominent Chinese dissident living in the U.S., amid pressure from Beijing.
The account belonged to billionaire Guo Wengui. Meta said it was removed because it violated Facebook's rules by sharing sensitive information about other people.
"The greatest trick Mark Zuckerberg ever pulled was wrapping the American flag around himself and calling himself a patriot and saying he didn’t offer services in China while he spent the last decade building an $18 billion business there," Wynn-Williams said.
Her statement argues that "Meta started briefing the Chinese Communist Party as early as 2015" and those "briefings focused on critical emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence."
"And he continues to wrap the flag around himself as we move into the next era of artificial intelligence."
In addition to allegedly trying to cozy up with China, Zuckerberg and other tech executives have tried improve their relationship with President Donald Trump, following his election victory last November.
"This is a man who wears many different costumes," Wynn-Williams said of Zuckerberg during her testimony. "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."
She added that Zuckerberg is now focused on accumulating important contacts.
"We don't know what the next costume is gonna be, but it will be something different," she said. "It's whatever gets him closest to power."
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Wednesday's hearing came days before Meta is slated to go on trial for alleged antitrust violations.