The Threads app and Adam Mosseri.
Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images; Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, has moved back to the US after a year in London.
His relocation comes four days after Mark Zuckerberg said Threads had lost more than half its users.
Mosseri also cited the time difference and a “drastically” changed site strategy.
Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, is moving back to the US after spending a year in London, England, he said Monday.
In a Threads post, Mosseri said the time difference “proved unsustainable” and “the company and the team’s site strategy changed drastically since” his relocation.
Meta’s previously pro-remote work culture changed in June as it began to require employees to come into the office three days a week.
Mosseri’s announcement also comes just four days after Mark Zuckerberg said Threads had lost more than half its users, according to Reuters, after rapidly reaching 100 million signups in just five days.
The Meta CEO said he expected Threads to retain more users as it introduced more features. Mosseri said last month that the company is working on “obvious missing features” like trending topics, hashtags, and a feed to show posts from people you follow.
Soon after his announcement, the Instagram boss told Threads users to “hang tight” for an improved desktop app as well.
Zuckerberg responded to Mosseri’s move: “Welcome home!”
When news of Mosseri’s move to London broke last August, the British media was hopeful that it might mean an expanded footprint for Meta in the UK.
The Financial Times reported at the time that Instagram would effectively be run from the British capital with more staff to be hired there.
At the time, the Daily Mail pointed out that the average salary for an engineer in the UK is around a third of those in San Francisco.
Meta’s London office — just 500 meters from Google’s impending “landscraper” — was its largest engineering hub outside the US with over 4,000 employees, although that number will likely have fallen since the company’s layoffs.
But now it looks like the future of Instagram and Threads will again be conducted from Silicon Valley — although Mosseri didn’t say whether he was returning to the Bay Area.
Meta did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.