This isn't even a conspiracy theory, it's just true. I mean, some of it is definitely induced attrition (you always want the expensive people to quit, in the Milton Friedman cinematic universe), but the rest is that the commercial real estate market would collapse tomorrow if businesses couldn't justify their 10- or 15-year commercial leases. Not for nothing did endless headlines about how "going into the office is super cool, actually" run in our most august financial publications, like WSJ and the Economist, right around the time RTO mandates started showing up.
Nobody except Mark Zuckerberg matters for Meta. He has majority control of the board voting rights.
It seems much more likely that this is driven by the fact that Facebook culture has always been very much around in-person 1:1 contacts between people. This frustrated me a lot when I was there, but it did seem to work for a relatively long time.
Boards have a finance subcommittee and review income on investments. Meta does not invest 100% of its worth inside Meta, it will have billions of dollars invested through merchant banks who in turn balance in private equity, shares, and property. The property component will be reporting risk on lower future returns if the building declines in value as an asset. His fund manager will be advising him that signals to increase occupancy reduces his risk.
