A Chan of Heart

In 2015, Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan built a philanthropic behemoth in their image: the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. Science-forward, research-backed, driven by empathy. But as Zuckerberg and Meta have tacked right, ditching DEI, insiders say Chan has become a proxy figure in the battle between her husband's company and their progressive CZI staff

- EVGENIA PERETZ

PRISCILLA CHAN MET the moment with the kind of grace and sensitivity she'd become known for. It was July 2020, George Floyd had recently been murdered, and staffers at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative-the foundation she started with husband Mark Zuckerberg in 2015-were hurting.

Tissues on hand, eyes welling up, she hosted an all-hands Zoom to address them. "It didn't feel right to not actually just spend the time as an organization acknowledging the-in medicine we call it 'acute on chronic-racial disaster that is our country," she said, hands clasped in front of her, in a video obtained by Vanity Fair. If there was a silver lining, it was that the moment was so bad, change was imperative-both in the country at large and at CZI, whatever that would entail. "That's my little hopeful pearl that I want to try to add.... We stand with the Black community, we stand with our Black employees.

It's felt harder and more important than ever to get a lot of our work right." The work would take time, she acknowledged, but she implored her employees to "take care of yourself, make sure you're giving yourself the space, the grace." Four and a half years later, Chan appeared at President Donald Trump's second inauguration, alongside her husband on the dais, a spot usually reserved for the president's nearest and dearest. Zuckerberg had been cozying up to MAGA world for some time and had just come off an appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast where he, buff and in a new gold chain, ragged on the Biden administration and lamented a lack of "masculine energy" in the workplace.