Kristen Bell knows how hard it can be to fit exercise into a busy schedule.

During our Zoom call, we realize we're both missing our regular workouts to do this interview — it's Monday evening in the UK for me and morning in LA for her. But we agree that we'll both do a few dumbbell curls while cooking later. An exercise snack, if you will.

"I don't want to get to it, but I will," Bell, 44, tells me.

It's a cliché that celebrities are "just like us!" but starring in huge projects like "Frozen" and "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" or "The Good Place" and "Nobody Wants This" won't help you persuade your kids to eat their vegetables.

In the latest installment of Business Insider's "5 to 9" series, where celebrities share how they spend the hours they're not working, the Golden Globe-nominated actor gives a glimpse into her life with her husband, the actor Dax Shepard, and their two daughters, aged 10 and 11.

What time do you start your day?

The whole family wakes up at 7 a.m. I have been a longtime committed supporter of not waking up before 7 a.m. I remember when our babies were born and other parents said, "Ours wake up at 5.30 a.m." and I thought, "No, I'll find the receipt, I'm not interested in that."

I'm not a morning person, and unfortunately, full disclosure, I'm also not a night person.

I'm pretty much a non-functioning corpse before I've had any caffeine, so I must chug something caffeinated to be able to speak. My primary objective when I wake up is to get to coffee, matcha, or even Diet Coke as quickly as possible.

What do you have for breakfast?

It depends, but I love it when our family eats eggs, for the protein and fats. We're also big fans of oatmeal but I try to slip in some protein powder. The girls do eat cereal, which is not my favorite, but I'm not here to be too strict and cereal is very fun. Sometimes I make high-protein pancakes.

Your daughters are lucky.

Tell them, they hate it.

Are they picky eaters or just average kids?

Aren't those things the same?

They're picky, but we talk a lot about health, nutrition, and how food affects our bodies and minds. I don't tell them they can't have a doughnut, but I tell them to notice how they feel 30 minutes later.

I'm a big fan of tough love with my kids and sometimes I have to say: "We are not always eating for pleasure. Sometimes we're eating because we know that's what our body needs."

They absolutely love Plezi drinks which are lower in sugar than other drinks [Bell is an investor and brand partner of Plezi Nutrition]. Obviously, water is the number one thing we should be giving our kids.

But the reality for any parent is that they are going to ask for something sweet and you can either fight with them all night or you can give them a Plezi and it feels like a treat.

Exercise snacking and heavy lifting

How do you keep fit?

My husband started working out a lot during COVID-19, and because I'm so competitive, I follow whatever he's doing.

For a long time, I did workouts that were tailored to women like Pilates. I enjoy those things but I really hit my stride and probably have the best body I've ever had at 44 — not just in terms of shape but also strength, endurance, and capacity — when I started heavy lifting.

My husband has been biking a lot recently to build quad strength. For the last two weeks, he cycled up to the observatory, which is a huge hill, every day.

I didn't think I could handle that, so I started with the hill in our neighborhood, which is still formidable. For the last five days, I've been on my daughter's trail bike doing 15-minute uphill bike rides.

Uphill cycling is really tough.

It's so tough. I'm very active but I never commit to just one workout because I like to challenge myself. There will be six weeks where I hike every day and the minute it feels a little bit comfortable, I'll switch.

I don't have hours to keep fit. I desperately try to fit in, say, that 15-minute cycle, but if it'll mess up my day I'll get to it later.

I keep a set of 10 or 15-pound weights underneath furniture so when I'm cooking dinner, if I haven't worked out that day, I'll do a set of bicep curls or shoulder presses while something simmers on the stove. Sometimes my workouts are sliced into my day in one-and-a-half-minute segments.

That's a thing — it's called exercise snacking.

Oh yeah, that's it. I hear people talking about their 90-minute workouts. When am I going to get that time? Never. So I rely on exercise snacking.

I try to habit-stack, too. I let the dogs out to pee at 9 p.m. every night, and then I do 24 squats. I've done that every night for six months, and it's great because I don't have to make time.

Reading and chatting before bed

Who cooks dinner?

My husband cooks a couple of times a year, and he is very good, but he usually doesn't have time. Everybody eats differently in my household, and I'd love to evict them all. I hate it, but I'll deal with it. The girls are picky. My husband is gluten-free and incredibly high-protein, so his meals are different.

I am not Martha Stewart. I pop things in the microwave and just try to make it work because, ultimately, as long as there are a couple of colors on the plate and at least one vegetable for the girls (usually frozen peas), that's my only commitment.

I was vegetarian for 30 years and vegan for a few, and then three years ago, I started eating meat again. It finally didn't feel weird to me. I felt like I needed and wanted it. Now I try to eat high-protein like my husband to support the lifting.

At family dinners, it's a mishmash but we eat together. The community of eating is far more important to me than the presentation.

What is bedtime like in your household?

We all go upstairs around 7:30 p.m. I usually sleep in the bedroom with my daughters as they don't like to sleep alone. My husband gets the master bedroom all to himself, which is lovely for him.

It's important to explain to kids why they have to do something. If they don't want to go to bed, we explain why sleep is important.

The four of us will lie in the kids' room and talk for about 45 minutes. My kids' brains are very open at night, they tell us all about their day. We usually read a book, and we're currently reading "Mandy" by Julie Andrews, which they really like. Sometimes my husband does voices with their stuffed animals.

I find it's a connective period and our way to plug back in, let them know everything is safe, the day is gone, it's just our family, and everyone can fall asleep peacefully. But it's long. It's 45 minutes to an hour, and then everyone falls asleep around 9 p.m.

Sometimes, I sneak out of the girls' room to watch a show with my husband in the master bedroom, then sneak back in.

We have three bedrooms, but our kids are very lucky and very privileged, so I was like, "Guess what? You're going to share a room, and you're going to have to deal with it, so figure it out."

• Ukraine says it's designed four upgraded versions of the Chinese-made Mavic drone.
• It said they can conduct reconnaissance behind the front lines and resist electronic warfare.
• Ukraine's military requested the tech after China limited exports and many drones were shot down.

Ukraine says it's developed upgraded versions of the Chinese-made Mavic drone after China limited its exports.

Brave1, a Ukrainian government-supported defense innovation program, told Business Insider that three domestic developers had created drones that met NATO standards, and that Ukrainian troops were already using some on the front lines.

Business Insider was unable to independently verify the claim.

The Mavic drone, designed by DJI, one of the world's largest drone manufacturers, was created for personal and commercial use but has become one of the most widely used drones on the front lines in Ukraine.

However, Ukraine has faced supply challenges.

In December, Bloomberg reported that China was limiting the export of critical components used in Ukraine's drones, including motors, batteries, and flight controllers.

This, coupled with the drone's high loss rates — up to five Mavic drones a day in some units — prompted Ukraine to look for alternatives.

New drones for Ukraine

Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine's minister of digital transformation, unveiled the new models in a Telegram post in December.

The four drones can carry out reconnaissance missions, Brave1 said, adding that, unlike their Chinese counterparts, the Ukrainian variants are equipped with communication systems that make them resistant to Russia's electronic warfare.

"These drones significantly enhance the situational awareness of our military, enabling them to plan more effectively and conduct operations more efficiently," it said, adding that it was "actively working on scaling up production to eventually achieve a complete replacement of Mavics."

Oleksii Kolesnyk, the founder of Reactive Drone, a Ukrainian military company that is developing one of the drones, told BI that its Shmavik drone can fly for up to 60 minutes, has an operation radius of about 9.3 miles, and can carry up to 2.2 pounds.

He said its purpose was to conduct frontline reconnaissance operations and stream live footage from the front.

Maria Korneva, a commercial director at Bravery Invest, a nonprofit, told BI that its Ukropter drone was an upgrade compared to the Mavic drone.

She said it had a heavier payload capacity of over 4 pounds, a longer flight time of up to 60 minutes, and could travel at about 46 miles per hour.

By comparison, the latest Mavic drone has a similar speed but a payload capacity half that, and a flight time of around 46 minutes, according to DJI's website.

Korneva said its Ukropter drone had been "highly" effective during trials, meeting all technical and tactical specifications, and contributed to saving Ukrainian lives in battlefield conditions.

Breaking dependency on China

Mark Cancian, a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told BI that these kinds of drones have become "absolutely vital" at this stage in the conflict.

"With the front lines stable, short-range FPV drones have become a major weapon, on par with artillery," he said.

"If Ukraine cannot get Chinese-made drones, then it needs to make its own," he added.

John Hardie, deputy director of the Russia Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said Ukraine's new capability upgrade is a "good thing" for the country — assuming the claims are true.

He told BI that Ukraine's effort to reduce its dependence on China's military components is also beneficial.

However, given the Ukrainian minister's statement that some components are manufactured in Ukraine, he suspects others still come from China.

Hardie also pointed to issues around Ukraine's domestic production. "Hopefully, it can make these Ukrainian-made drones cheaply and quickly enough to keep up with demand," he said.

• Sotheby's International Realty identified four things motivating luxury homebuyers in 2025.
• Luxury buyers want move-in-ready homes with sustainability and wellness elements already added.
• Some home must-haves include solar panels, spas, steam rooms, and pickleball courts.

Millionaires are like the rest of us — for the most part.

Global real estate brokerage Sotheby's International Realty found that luxury homebuyers want to live where their money stretches further, and they're willing to move to new cities or even other countries to make it happen. They're also prioritizing move-in-ready homes with wellness-oriented amenities, brand names, and environmentally conscious features.

"We're seeing that emerging affluents are increasingly driven by the lifestyle they aspire to, often prioritizing their personal interests and values when choosing a home," Philip White, president and CEO of Sotheby's International Realty, said in the brokerage's annual luxury real estate trend forecast.

Here are four priorities for luxury homebuyers in 2025, according to Sotheby's.

1. Young buyers are on the hunt for move-in-ready homes with features that will help them be healthier.

Sotheby's found that millennial luxury buyers prefer turnkey, move-in-ready homes over properties that require extensive updates or renovations.

"They don't want to deal with improvements," said Daniel Heider, a global real estate advisor at TTR Sotheby's International Realty in Washington, DC. "They want it ready, down to the landscaping, and they're willing to pay for it."

From the start, younger wealthy buyers expect homes to include features like "wellness facilities, cold plunges, steam rooms, pickleball courts, and infrared saunas," Heider added.

This emphasis on wellness design is part of a larger trend of American homeowners prioritizing mental health and physical well-being in their living spaces.

Wellness trends are also a driver in the Napa Valley real estate market, according to Hillary Ryan, a global real estate advisor with Sotheby's in St. Helena, California.

"In the ultra-luxury category, buyers expect to have a gym, productive gardens for farm-to-table dining, spa-like bathrooms, tennis and pickleball courts, and even Zen gardens and infrared saunas," Ryan said. "The influence of biohacking culture has made an impact on what buyers are seeking in their wine country residences."

2. Buyers are increasingly drawn to homes built by buzzy car, fashion, and restaurant brands.

We have designer clothes, cars, appliances — and, yes, designer homes, too.

While traditionally linked to luxury hotel brands, branded residences are becoming more popular, especially in Miami.

Luxury automakers like Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, Aston Martin, Bentley, and Pagani have all ventured into Miami real estate, developing their own condos with names to match.

In 2024, Pagani announced plans for a 70-unit luxury condo in Miami's North Bay Village. The Pagani Residences will offer two- to four-bedroom units, ranging from 2,000 to over 3,000 square feet, with prices starting around $3 million — about the same cost as one of their cars. Each condo will come fully furnished, featuring Italian-designed Schiffini kitchens, 11-foot-wide terraces, and walk-in closets.

"I sold a unit to a guy who loves Pagani cars, and it didn't matter to him where the location was," Carlo Dipasquale, a luxury real-estate agent in South Florida, told Business Insider's James Rodriguez. "They could've built the building inland, anywhere in Miami, for all he cared."

It's not just carmakers leveraging their iconic brands to sell homes.

The owner of the popular Italian restaurant Carbone is partnering with developers on a high-rise project in Miami, set to be completed by 2027, with units starting at $5 million each. Meanwhile, Dolce & Gabbana is behind the upcoming 888 Brickell Miami development.

3. Homes with environmentally friendly features are appealing — partly because they might be worth more.

According to Sotheby's, hybrid homes are gaining popularity among luxury buyers as Americans look to balance sustainability and convenience.

Hybrid homes blend traditional and modern building techniques and styles. They often use classic materials, like stone or wood, alongside sustainable technologies such as rainwater harvesting systems and green roofs, also known as living roofs.

Ryan MacLaughlin, a Maui-based principal broker with Sotheby's, said that "100%" of the high-end homes his brokerage sells in Hawaii have at least one sustainable feature.

"The high-end homeowner is still the most price-conscious on the market," he said. "They don't want to waste money, and sustainable features help them feel confident they can run their homes as efficiently as possible at a lower cost."

Sotheby's 2025 survey of its agents found that solar panels are buyers' most sought-after green features, primarily because they can reduce utility bills and increase homes' value.

Luxury buyers expect eco-friendly features like solar panels to be included from the start, not added later, said Darlene Streit, a global real estate advisor at Sotheby's in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

"There was a craze with people renovating their homes to be more sustainable during the pandemic, and now I find that more people want that done for them," Streit added. "They will pay more to have it done rather than have to worry about doing it themselves."

4. Wealthy buyers want to live where their money goes further.

The Midwest's affordable homes and strong job market have made it a prime homebuying destination for Americans of all income levels.

Paul Handle, managing director of Mahler Sotheby's International Realty in Milwaukee, said that the surge in demand has sparked a "renaissance" in the region's luxury real estate market.

"Luxury buyers are increasingly looking at the Midwest because of the incredible value they receive compared with coastal cities," he said. "They can purchase expansive properties, often with unique architectural details or waterfront access, for a fraction of the cost they would pay in New York, Los Angeles, or Miami."

Data from Redfin shows that in December, the median sale price in Milwaukee was $216,000, far less than New York City's median sale price of $825,000.

Beyond cost savings, Handle said that the Midwest's slower pace of life and more predictable climate are also drawing buyers.

Sotheby's also found that cost of living and quality of life concerns motivate young wealthy Americans to look beyond US borders to European countries like Italy.

The brokerage calls it the "White Lotus" effect, inspired by the popular HBO series. Young investors —  including digital nomads and tech and finance workers — are moving to places like Lake Como, where their money fetches a better life, the vibes are relaxed, and golden visas offer a path to residency.

• The US Navy developed a $50 million stealth surface vessel that was never put into operational use.
• The Sea Shadow's angular surfaces inspired the design of the Zumwalt-class stealth destroyers.
• Its influence also lives on in a new catamaran vessel designed for near-shore operations.

The Cold War was a golden age for stealth technology as the US military heavily invested in advanced systems and capabilities to get the upper hand over the Soviet Union.

Driven by the Soviet Union's advancements in radar and missile systems, the US military moved beyond just reducing radar visibility to designing fully radar-evading aircraft like Lockheed Martin's F-117 Nighthawk, the first operational stealth fighter.

But the US Navy sought to get eyes in the water as well, attempting to create the first stealth vessel that was undetectable by radar and sonar. The Navy never found a use for the one-of-a-kind vessel, whose design was ahead of its time and informed the creation of the Zumwalt-class stealth destroyers.

Its influence also lives on in a new catamaran vessel designed for near-shore operations.

Stealth submarine to surface ship

Ben Rich, then the director of Lockheed's Skunk Works, decided to apply the F-117's stealthy coatings and angular shaping to a submarine.

Rich and his Skunk Works team — the industry leaders in stealth design — developed a small-scale model of a submarine dubbed the Sea Shadow to test in a sonic chamber. They found that the angular design of the cigar-shaped hull bounced sonar signals away from the vessel and muffled sounds it emitted from the crew and engine.

Trial and error

However, the Defense Department didn't find a need for underwater stealth craft, prompting Rich to adapt the design into a Small Water Area Twin Hull, a catamaran-style surface vessel designed to be stable and fast in rough seas whose futuristic design looked unlike anything else in the US fleet.

The Pentagon expressed interest in Rich's modified stealth surface vessel model, authorizing a $50 million contract through the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to Skunk Works to "test the effects of stealth shaping and coatings on surface vessels and effects of seawater on radar absorbing iron ferrite coatings," according to Lockheed Martin.

Top secret development

The Soviet Union's network of reconnaissance satellites could expose the positions of the US Navy's surface fleet. Drawing inspiration from the Nighthawk, the Sea Shadow incorporated sharp angles and flat surfaces of 45-degree angles to reduce the ship's radar visibility and avoid detection.

The stealth concept was tested in a 100-by-80-foot plastic swimming pool in Death Valley, California, using a simulated Soviet radar satellite. The successful test earned the project more funding to develop a prototype of the Sea Shadow.

Developed under strict secrecy, the Sea Shadow was constructed modularly, building smaller sections of the ship before they were taken to a submergible barge in California to be fully assembled.

The 164-foot vessel could accommodate a four-man crew consisting of the commander, helmsman, navigator, and engineer. The diesel-electric propulsion system allowed the vessel to reach speeds of up to 15 knots, or about 17 miles per hour.

Failure to launch

The Sea Shadow prototype was designed to test the application of stealth technology at sea, exploring how its stealth capabilities would perform in real-world conditions.

But the stealth ship was a one-off prototype with limited capabilities, and its odd, unconventional design was highly specialized, making it less practical for general use. Without the flexibility or features of the other multi-role vessels in the Navy's fleet, the Sea Shadow never saw use.

After nearly three decades sitting in storage at a private shipyard in San Diego, the Navy offered the Sea Shadow to museums for free, but there were no takers. Instead, it was sold at a 95% loss in 2012 — the highest bid amounting to $2.5 million — and was dismantled and scrapped.

Lasting legacy

Even though the prototype itself didn't fit into the Navy's evolving needs, it did provide valuable insights into adapting stealth technology for the sea. The lessons learned from Sea Shadow contributed to more advanced stealth ships and systems, like the Zumwalt-class destroyers.

While the expensive Zumwalt class has long struggled to find a suitable mission and weapons, they featured similar stealth characteristics to the Sea Shadow, like low radar cross-sections and angular shapes, to achieve greater survivability and effectiveness in modern naval warfare.

General Dynamics GHOST vessel

The Sea Shadow's design also has similarities with a new vessel. Developed by General Dynamics, the GHOST is an uncrewed vessel designed for coastal defense, special operations, and anti-piracy patrols. It can raise or lower its wings for low visibility, high speed, or stability.

The 62-foot drone has a shallow four-foot draft for coastal operations, and its hybrid turbine-and-electric drive allows the vessel to reach speeds of up to 32.5 knots, or about 37 mph. A General Dynamics brochure said it has two "stealth" modes.

Not only can the GHOST be modified physically to fit the mission at hand — like carrying missiles or ferrying 16 Navy SEALs — but it can also be operated by a pilot and navigator onboard, controlled remotely, or programmed as an autonomous platform.

• New York City recently made it legal to add a housing unit to certain one- and two-family homes.
• But both city and state regulations will drastically limit construction, experts say.
• A state law severely restricts the addition of ADUs to two-family buildings.

One of the solutions to New York City's housing shortage — adding extra units in attics, basements, and backyards — is already running into a slew of regulatory hurdles.

Under the city's zoning reforms, certain one- and two-family building owners will be allowed to add a so-called "accessory dwelling unit" to rent out, house a family member, or live in themselves. Homeowners could boost the value of their property and bring in extra income while creating more homes in a city facing a dire housing shortage. The change would also help bring many of the city's tens of thousands of existing basement units into compliance with health and safety codes.

But the city's new law restricts ADUs in several ways, including by banning ADUs on lots with attached rowhomes or townhouses and on lots more than half a mile from a mass transit station. The law also prohibits ground-floor and basement ADUs in areas prone to coastal flooding and inland flooding during heavy rain. A backyard ADU can cover no more than a third of the yard and can't be added in historic districts.

A state law that could block a lot of building

ADUs aren't just subject to city regulations. New York State's Multiple Dwelling Law (MDL) requires that buildings with three or more units have features one might associate with a large apartment building. For example, the law requires sprinklers in every unit and a certain ceiling height in basements, both of which can be prohibitively costly to add to an existing building.

"A lot of the sites that might be able to add an ADU would trigger the MDL and, therefore, wouldn't really be viable from a design perspective," said Marcel Negret, the director of land-use planning at the Regional Plan Association, a pro-housing nonprofit focused on the tri-state area.

Casey Berkovitz, the press secretary for the Department of City Planning, said the City is still examining how the MDL will apply to ADU construction, but agrees it would make it harder to add basement and attic ADUs in existing two-family homes.

There are exceptions. Building a new detached ADU wouldn't implicate the MDL because it's not part of an existing building, Berkovitz noted. And certain neighborhoods across the city are part of a new basement legalization effort that exempts them from certain MDL restrictions.

The state legislature could amend the MDL to reduce barriers for ADUs in New York City — something the City has asked it to do, said Eric Kober, a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute and former planner with the City. But he's not optimistic state lawmakers will get on board, adding, "There's no indication that it's on their radar or something that they're interested in doing."

Kober argued that the City's requirement that homeowners live on the lot they add an ADU is the most counter-productive of the regulations because it would prevent private developers from building ADUs.

The NYC government last fall said it expected that fewer than one in 200 eligible homeowners would choose to add an ADU to their property in a given year.

Negret estimated just a few thousand of the 82,000 additional homes the city is expected to add over the next 15 years under City of Yes will be ADUs. That's down from between 26,000 and 40,000 ADUs the city expected to add under the original version of its reforms, which were significantly reined in by the city council.

"My conclusion is, yes, ADUs are technically legal, but there's still a long, long way to go before they could be a much more significant share of a growing housing stock," Negret told Business Insider.

Legalization is just the first step

The city is still developing new rules that will impact ADU construction. This includes creating updated flood maps, which will likely further restrict where ADUs are allowed. It's unclear when the City will finalize the rulemaking process.

Eventually, the City says it will create a "one-stop shop" website to guide homeowners through the ADU construction process, including a set of pre-approved designs.

New York is following in the footsteps of cities such as Los Angeles and Seattle that view ADUs as low-hanging fruit in the quest for more affordable housing. After California loosened its restrictions on ADUs, the extra units made up nearly 20% of new homes built in 2023.

But progress tends to be slow. ADU legalization alone isn't usually enough to prompt lots of new construction. In some cities and towns, local land-use laws, permitting, and other regulations have stood in the way. Owner-occupancy requirements, off-street parking mandates, and discretionary permit reviews are among the most burdensome rules.

Just over a year ago, the NYC government rolled out a pilot grant program — called "Plus One ADU" — that awarded 15 homeowners with up to nearly $400,000 in funding per household to build an extra dwelling in their backyard, basement, or attic. The city has since expanded that program, but it applies only to lots that are already zoned to accommodate another unit.

"ADUs are a proven tool in cities across the country to support working families with extra space, additional income, and the opportunity to age in place," Dan Garodnick, the director of the New York City Department of City Planning, told Business Insider in a December statement.

• Meta kicked off 2025 with big changes following a big year for the company.
• In the first weeks of January, it overhauled its content moderation system, nixed DEI programs, and announced layoffs.
• The "rather frenzied start" to the new year sets up an apparent "year of intensity," one analyst told BI.

Coming off of a banner year in 2024, Meta is hitting the ground running in 2025.

With a new president in the White House and the AI arms race in full swing amid DeepSeek mania, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has kept busy.

Referring to Meta's January as "a rather frenzied start," Forrester VP and research director Mike Proulx said that the company's past "year of efficiency" was being "trumped in 2025 with an apparent year of 'intensity.'"

The company made several big announcements in the first week of the new year ahead of Trump's inauguration, and in audio from Meta's all-hands meeting this week obtained by Business Insider, Zuckerberg told employees to "buckle up."

"Everyone always says that every year is a big year, right?" Zuckerberg said.

"When I look at the kind of long-term trajectory for the stuff that we're doing this year, I think by the end of this year we're going to have a much clearer sense of the trajectory of a lot of the long-term things that we're doing, whether that's AI or glasses, or a number of areas around the future of social media, a number of key partnerships that we're working on," the Meta CEO said.

"This year feels a little more like a sprint to me," he added.

New year, new policies that will impact your News Feed

If 2025 represents a sprint for Meta, the first leg of the race saw some of its biggest changes in years.

The most impactful for Meta's billions of users was announced on January 7, when Zuckerberg messaged that Meta's content moderation policy would be overhauled.

In a controversial decision, Meta said that it would sunset its third-party fact-checking in favor of community notes, similar to that of Elon Musk's X, formerly known as Twitter.

Zuckerberg said Wednesday he thinks a community notes model "is just going to be more effective."

The company also loosened its hate speech policies and announced that it would return to promoting political discussions in its apps.

The policy changes may not move the needle much on the ad dollars spent on Meta's platforms as its size alone makes it a "must-have" for advertisers, Truist Securities analyst Youssef Squali told BI.

"Large advertisers will tell you that. Small advertisers will tell you that," the analyst said. "So there's scarcity value for advertisers and their ability to access some of these platforms that actually work for them."

Meta CFO Susan Li said in Wednesday's earnings call that the company hasn't observed a noticeable difference in ad spending since the announcement a few weeks ago. When reached for comment, Meta referred BI to Zuckerberg's video and its blog post on the content moderation changes.

Collectively, Meta's policy overhaul means big changes are coming to your Instagram, Threads, and Facebook news feeds.

Meta maneuvers closer to Trump

The content moderation policy overhaul is one of a slew of recent changes at Meta widely viewed as a way to appease President Trump, who frequently criticized and even threatened the company and its chief executive in the past.

Trump told reporters the content moderation changes were "probably" in response to threats he's made to Meta.

Following a dinner with the president at Mar-a-Lago and Meta's $1 million donation to his inauguration fund, Zuckerberg was one of a handful of tech execs seated close to Trump during his swearing-in ceremony on January 20.

"Having Trump coming back into office — and we all know Trump's position with regards to Meta and Zuck, in particular — I feel there was a lot of pressure for him to revisit his stance," Truist Securities' Squali told BI of the content moderation changes.

Meta's chief marketing officer, Alex Schultz, previously told BI that Trump's election win, coupled with shifting "vibes in America," were factors in the content moderation overhaul.

Other big changes include the company rolling back its programs for DEI. Diversity programs have been a frequent target for Trump and other conservative activist groups.

In Wednesday's earnings call, Zuckerberg said 2025 would be "a big year for redefining our relationship with governments." He added that he's "optimistic" about the Trump administration, saying it "prioritizes American technology winning" and "will defend our values and interests abroad."

Meta also made some personnel changes that could help it better navigate the next four years.

Ahead of the administration change, Meta named Joel Kaplan its new chief global affairs officer. Kaplan, a former adviser to George W. Bush and a longtime Republican lobbyist for Meta, replaced Nick Clegg, former leader of the UK's Liberal Democrats, in the position.

Meta also added several new names to its board of directors, specifically tech investor Charlie Songhurst, Exor CEO John Elkann, and UFC chief Dana White. Zuckerberg, an MMA hobbyist, has been photographed with White, a longtime friend of Trump, multiple times in recent years.

And in a recent move to end a legal battle involving Trump, Meta also agreed to pay $25 million to settle a lawsuit the president brought against it and Zuckerberg after Facebook suspended his account in 2021 following the January 6 Capitol riots.

Plans for layoffs and doubling down on AI

Meta's work to reshape its workforce, which began in late 2022, shows no signs of slowing down as it races to keep up with AI pioneer OpenAI and newcomers like Chinese AI startup DeepSeek.

In a memo obtained earlier this month by BI, Meta announced layoffs coming in February for 5% of its workforce, targeting its "lowest performers."

However, discussing its quarterly earnings on Wednesday, Meta said it plans to hire in "the priority areas of infrastructure, monetization, Reality Labs, generative artificial intelligence (AI), as well as regulation and compliance."

The company expects to spend $60 to $65 billion in capital expenditures this year as it barrels full-steam ahead on AI, a significant increase from $39.23 billion in 2024, which already raised eyebrows among investors and analysts.

Zuckerberg said Wednesday he thinks 2025 will be the year an AI assistant hits 1 billion users, and naturally he wants that of Meta AI. He also teased upcoming news about its Llama 4 AI model and hinted at getting back to "some OG Facebook" this year.

Responding to Wall Street analysts' questions about DeepSeek, Zuckerberg said it was important for a US firm to set the standard on open-source AI "for our own national advantage."

"I think that, if anything, some of the recent news has only strengthened our conviction that this is the right thing for us to be focused on," Zuckerberg said.

In audio from Meta's all-hands meeting on Thursday, Meta CFO Susan Li said the company is "excited for the roadmap" this year and for AI initiatives "driving further momentum" that would "fuel 2025 growth."

Do you work at Meta? Contact the reporters from a non-work email and device at [email protected] and [email protected].