Make the world a better place' seems so outdated as a mission

If Meta's change of heart works, expect other businesses to follow

- BETH KOWITT

Not so long ago, Mark Zuckerberg seemed to want the public to view him not just as an empire builder, but also as a world-saver. Meta Platforms' CEO publicly committed parts of his vast fortune to causes like immigration reform and voter access. He spoke out about combating poverty and hunger and stressed the importance of equality.

In a flurry of announcements, Zuckerberg confirmed a change of heart. Now, he appears to have whittled his ambitions. Getting rid of fact checkers and loosening the rules on what users can say on Meta's platforms will likely heighten misinformation and abusive speech. He also ended Meta's commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).

This may be an extreme case, but across America Inc, the trend is pointing in the same direction: CEOs are spending much less time, energy and money trying to publicly position themselves as change agents.

In Silicon Valley, the make-the-world-a-better-place discourse of the early boom years has mostly disappeared.

On Wall Street, big institutions from JPMorgan Chase to Goldman Sachs and BlackRock have abandoned one of the world's biggest finance groups dedicated to battling climate change.