Meta CTO reportedly tells employees the company tracked down a leaker and severed ties with them

• Meta's CTO told staff the company identified a worker who leaked information, The Verge reported.
• Meta severed ties with the worker after a monthslong investigation, per the report.

Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth told employees in an internal company post that the company had identified a worker who had leaked information about its virtual reality headsets, according to The Verge's Command Line newsletter.

Bosworth told staff in the post that the company had tracked down the individual and parted ways with the worker following a monthslong investigation into the leaked information, per the report. The publication said the worker was a third-party contractor with Meta.

The worker had leaked details around previously unannounced VR headsets and had shared sketches of Meta's rumored Quest 3 last year that were posted by tech review YouTuber Brad Lynch, more commonly known by his channel name SadlyItsBradley. The Quest 3 headset is expected to be released this fall.

The worker who leaked the information had asked Lynch for a portion of his profits from the ads on his YouTube videos, the newsletter said.

Meta did not respond to a request for comment from Insider.

Lynch, who showed off the leaked designs in his YouTube video, told Insider he does not "normally" pay for leaked information.

"I do not make enough money as a lone VR content creator who tends to rely on viewer patronage rather than corporate sponsorships," he said in an emailed statement.

He added that Meta has a more significant issue with leaks at the company than this one worker, saying Meta's response won't deter him from continuing to share unreleased details about the company.

The YouTuber previously told Command Line that the Meta leaker "might have asked because I wasn't willing to give much money up front."

The Quest 3 leak is not the first time Meta has been unable to stop product reveals. Insider previously reported that an online user found an unreleased Meta VR headset in a hotel room and posted photos and a video of the device on Facebook.

Meta's VR headsets are a large part of Mark Zuckerberg's efforts to pivot the company to focus more on the metaverse, a digital reality where users can interact online using avatars. Zuckerberg has said Meta and Apple are in "very deep, philosophical competition" when it comes to selling VR headsets and building the metaverse, The Verge reported in July.

Read the full Command Line newsletter here.

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