Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley on Monday urged Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to stop trying to silence whistleblowers, after a former employee claimed the company was trying to collect $50,000 for every disparaging statement she made against them.

The letter comes after Sarah Wynn-Williams, the former director of global public policy at Facebook, testified last week that Meta executives have repeatedly “betray[ed] American values” by trying to curry favor with the Chinese government in order to build an $18 billion business in the Asian country. 

In the letter Grassley scrutinized Meta’s severance agreement with Wynn-Williams, which his office claimed could violate the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) regulations by not allowing her to receive money for reporting illegal conduct. 

“For over a decade, I’ve sounded the alarm about restrictive severance agreements and nondisclosure agreements (NDA) that hinder congressional oversight and improperly silence whistleblowers from making disclosures to Congress and regulatory bodies," Grassley wrote. "It appears that attempts to silence whistleblowers are not just prevalent in the AI sector, but in the tech industry more broadly."

The senator claimed the company needs to make it clear that employees can actually receive monetary compensation for reporting illegal activity to authorities and Congress without professional repercussions. 

“The tactics used by Meta are clearly aimed at silencing Ms. Wynn-Williams, a brave whistleblower who courageously testified in the face of Meta’s threats at the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism,” he added.

Grassley requested information about Meta's severance packages, including whether they have updated their severance agreement to remove restrictions, and how many SEC investigations the company and its subsidiaries have been subject to.

The letter comes as Zuckerberg testifies in court in an antitrust trial regarding his company's purchases of Instagram and WhatsApp. The trial started on Monday and is expected to take two months.

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.