Controversies and Facebook have been running parallelly for a long time. This time around, the company’s investors have begun pressurizing Mark Zuckerberg to bow out and resign as the Chairman of Facebook. The outrage follows the New York Times investigation that revealed the social media giant had some help finding out “dirt on its rivals”. Facebook allegedly hired, Definers Public Affairs, a Washington-DC based PR firm to dig up anything controversial associated with its critics or rival companies.
Jonas Kron, Trillium Asset Management’s Senior Vice President, has reportedly asked Zuckerberg to resign from his position of the Board Chairman. Trillium Asset Management holds a major stake in Facebook and Kron is not happy about the way Zuckerberg is leading the company. He believes that the CEO and chairman should be separated.
Zuckerberg Denies any Prior Knowledge of the Firm’s Doings
Definers Public Affairs is a political consulting firm and it was hired to take care of Facebook’s PR. The DC-based firm allegedly dug up dirt on Facebook’s competitors and wrote articles criticizing them. This was suggested by a New York Times article which triggered the social media giant’s investors. Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg said he called off any ties with the company as soon as he read the article and that he had no prior knowledge of the firm. Not only the CEO but Facebook COO, Sheryl Sandberg also claimed to have no knowledge of this. Facebook has cleared that the firm was hired to handle the funding of the “Freedom from Facebook” campaign, which the company claims is supported by a critic named George Soros. The social media giant denies all the allegations so far but acknowledges being slow while investigating or taking any action.
Investors want to See a Change at the Management Level
The idea of Zuckerberg resigning as the company CEO and the Board Chairman is not a result of the latest shakedown. The board of investors have been at it for quite a while. The people on the board need to see a change at the top level now that Zuckerberg doesn’t seem quite the leader. However, Mark Zuckerberg owns 60% of the company’s share, who can make the decisions for the company and would like to keep it that way. But the investors don’t seem too happy about it. They feel the need for an unbiased chair to keep a regular check on the company’s leadership. Not just the investors, there have been reports of the shakedown of Facebook’s internal rapport. After the Cambridge Analytica Scandal, Zuckerberg reportedly pushed the blame on the company COO Sheryl Sandberg. Furthermore, there have been reports of him threatening to fire people involving in any kind of news media activity.
Time and time again, Zuckerberg has remained vocal about taking the responsibilities of what happens at Facebook. With his statements, he has made it quite clear that “he runs this company and is responsible for what happened here”. While him running the company part is loud and clear, we wonder what he is doing to fix the mess after taking the responsibility. The pressure on Zuckerberg from the investors is now more than ever. If you look at the timeline of the social media giant’s activities dating past couple of years, the series of “unfortunate” events don’t stop. One more unfortunate outbreak and Zuckerberg might have to step down.
