Meta hired CJ Desai, who ran MongoDB for less than a year, to lead its new enterprise platform. MongoDB shares fell more than 18%.
MongoDB CEO CJ Desai is leaving the company to join Meta Platforms as chief enterprise platform officer, reporting directly to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Shares of MongoDB fell more than 18% on the news, while Meta’s stock declined about 5%.
Desai, who had been at MongoDB for less than a year, will lead Meta’s new Meta Enterprise Platform for businesses, Meta said in a release. The platform will initially focus on a suite of tools that includes Meta’s new Muse agent, a business agent and a coding tool.
Meta plans to draw on “strengths that few other companies have: advanced models, leading agents, large-scale infrastructure, and years of working closely with many businesses,” Zuckerberg wrote in the release.
A person familiar with the matter told CNBC that Zuckerberg made Desai an offer directly, and that the package was enticing enough for Desai to give up his pay package and severance at MongoDB.
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MongoDB’s leadership change
MongoDB’s board named Dev Ittycheria interim president and CEO. Ittycheria led the company for 11 years before Desai succeeded him in November 2025.
Desai previously spent a year as president of product and engineering at Cloudflare. He also worked as chief operating officer at the enterprise software maker ServiceNow.
MongoDB has lost nearly a quarter of its market value this year.
Meta’s AI pivot
Desai’s move comes as Meta makes a major push into AI products and services for business customers. Investors have demanded a payoff from the company’s heavy spending on AI infrastructure and tools.
Meta’s Muse personal AI assistant has drawn strong consumer demand and overtaken OpenAI’s ChatGPT as the top free iOS app.
The hiring also comes amid a heated debate in Washington and Silicon Valley over AI safety. Top AI researchers and tech leaders, including Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, have called for a slowdown in development.
CNBC’s Seema Mody contributed reporting.
