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Social media giant Meta’s footprint in Menlo Park is shrinking, as layoffs and a yearslong decline in local headcount take effect even as its property holdings remain a major pillar of the city’s tax base.
Meta moved its headquarters from Palo Alto to Menlo Park in 2011 when it signed a 15-year lease for the former Sun Microsystems campus, located in the city’s Bayfront neighborhood. When the New York Times reported in January 2025 that the nearly $1.5 trillion company was exploring changing its incorporation from the state of Delaware, the company responded publicly that it had no plans to move out of Menlo Park.
While its headquarters remain in place, Meta has moved some of its divisions out of California, including relocating its US-based trust and safety team to Texas.
In the current fiscal year, which ends June 30, Meta announced layoffs totaling 10% of its workforce, including 2,570 employees in Menlo Park, according to state data. It represents a drop in Menlo Park-based staff that began with the COVID-19 pandemic, according to city data.
In fiscal year 2020-21, Meta employed some 18,500 people in Menlo Park. At the time, its employees made up more than 80% of the city’s labor force. In the years since, Meta’s headcount has steadily declined, reaching a low of 12,159 in fiscal year 2023-24.
Other companies that have moved into the city are picking up some of the slack, data shows. In 2025, Snowflake, a cloud-based data platform company, relocated its headquarters from San Mateo to a 773,000-square-foot office complex at 135 Constitution Drive in Menlo Park. The office was originally leased by Meta, which sublet it to Snowflake.
As of fiscal year 2024-25, Snowflake had 1,450 employees in Menlo Park, according to the most recent city data. Robinhood Markets is also a major employer headquartered in the city, with more than 1,000 employees.
Meta and its affiliated companies own at least $4 billion in assessed property value in Menlo Park. Its holdings are primarily split between two entities: Hibiscus Properties LLC, with $2.2 billion in assessed value, and Facebook, with $1.5 billion, according to city records.
Securities and Exchange Commission filings show that Hibiscus Properties LLC is a Meta subsidiary.
Peninsula Innovation Partners LLC, a joint venture between Meta and Signature Development Group for the now-tabled Willow Village project, holds more than $500 million in assessed property value.
Under state law, increases in assessed property values are capped at 2% annually unless a property changes ownership or undergoes new construction. Over the past three fiscal years, Meta’s total assessed value has begun to stagnate, including a decline in fiscal year 2024–25. These decreases may reflect falling property values or ownership changes.
Despite this, Meta’s property holdings remain a core component of Menlo Park’s tax base. The three Meta affiliates and subsidiaries accounted for 13.4% of the city’s total assessed property value — $28.6 billion — as of fiscal year 2024-25.
After announcing it would “pause” its huge, mixed-use Willow Village development in May, Meta said it remained “deeply committed to the community,” but cited changes in the real estate market and its current space needs as reasons for the decision.
Willow Village was projected to bring in over $6 million in additional annual tax revenue to the city. The development would have also required Meta to contribute at least $133 million in community benefits, including bringing the Belle Haven neighborhood a full service grocery store, town square and entertainment venue.
I file this under the Go Woke Go Broke. We need Steve Hilton for our next Governor or we will just keep seeing more companies reduce their California footprint. It would be nice if instead of blocking traffic at the Airport, our elected representative, Josh Becker, would do more to make California an attractive place to do business.
Meta’s layoffs aren’t about California politicians; they’re mostly about AI, which is putting all the big tech companies in the hole. There’s not enough money in the world to pay for the compute they want.
Just keep telling yourself everything is going great with California policies. Meta moved their Trust and Safety team from California to Texas last year. And yes, AI & data centers are expensive, and Meta has announced new builds with campuses around them in Ohio, Nebraska, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Utah, Louisiana, Indiana, South Carolina, Minnesota, a few in Texas and I am sure there are others.
It sure would have been nice if the Menlo Park, East Palo Alto, and San Mateo County governments could have better incentivized Meta to fulfill the past promise of building “a full service grocery store, town square and entertainment venue” on this side of 101. Oh well
I think the better question to ask is “Why isn’t it financially attractive for a developer to take over and build out a good mix of housing, commercial and amenities”.
I live over here. I know the answer to your question. I think most people on the west side of 101 either do not know the answer to your question or have convinced themselves that mismanagement by city, county, and state governments is not the most significant factor we suffer from over here.
The $5.88M annual revenue projected to be brought in by Willows Village would have been diluted by by $4.35M in city service costs.
The Fiscal Impact Analysis (“FIA”) associated with Willow Village makes clear that the only reason Willow Village had a net-positive, long-term fiscal impact for the city was because of the TOT taxes generated by the proposed project hotel.
“The annual General Fund surplus would total approximately $1.6 million following full buildout of the Proposed Project in 2026. However, it is important to note that the positive fiscal impact associated with the Proposed Project would be entirely dependent on the TOT revenue generated by the hotel. [p.36]”
So both the office and the housing components fail to pay for themselves.
This is generally true for office and housing projects.
Office projects are near break-even in early project years, but they have long-term negative fiscal impacts as city service costs increase faster than property taxes.
Housing projects are net money losers in year one that grow worse over time for the same reasons. For example, the adopted Menlo Park Housing Element, if built, would cost the city $4.8M annually net of (all) revenues. The fiscal impacts on most school districts are more severe.
The layoff and area loss of high-paying Meta employees would put [significant] downward pressure on area rents.
This is from the Willow Village Housing Needs Assessment.
“The [rent] regression analysis evaluated the relationship of home prices and rents to both total job growth and high-wage job growth. High-wage job growth is defined .. as employment within industries that have average pay above $100,000 per year as of 2016.”
Regression Analysis Findings
… The primary findings of the analysis are:
–Rents have a positive, statistically significant correlation with job growth in all scenarios. …
–Each 10,000 total jobs added to the county (net of offsetting housing growth) is
correlated with a 3.9% increase in rents and 3.6% increase in home prices …
–Each 10,000 high-wage jobs (net of offsetting housing growth) added to the county is correlated with a 6.1% increase in rents and 6.5% increase in home prices ..”
If only The City Council of Menlo Park has schmoozed ZUCK-ZUCK more, like everyone seems to do to DJT when he wants something, then, perhaps META would not leave for TEX-ASS or elsewhere. But, people probably still see him as “that guy” who was portrayed as an unlikeable nerdy dweeb at Harvard, in the movie “The Social Network” and do not want to Kiss Up to Daddy Warbucks.