Investors, worried about their investments and federal regulation are telling Mark Zuckerberg that they want him to resign. They are also not happy about the fact that he hired a PR firm to bash critics by connecting them to George Soros.
They believe it is a mistake for one person to be chairman as well as CEO. Jonas Kron, a senior vice president at Trillium Asset Management, whose company has a large stake in Facebook, says the company is acting like a snowflake. But it could also be attributed to the fact that there is a bi-partisan group in the Senate that wants to break up the large social monopolies.
Both Mr Zuckerberg and Sir Nick have been under pressure following reports Facebook hired Definers, a Republican public relations firm, to help repair its battered reputation following intense criticism of the social media platform’s handling of a scandal over Russian interference in the 2016 US elections and the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
Definers allegedly encouraged the depiction of Facebook’s critics as anti-Semites and had published news articles criticising Facebook’s competitors. The business has also been accused of attempting to encourage journalists to report that anti-Facebook groups were linked to Mr Soros.
In a call with journalists on Thursday, Mr Zuckerberg denied knowing that his business had hired the firm. “As soon as I learned about this, I talked to our team and we are no longer working with this firm,” he said. He has also asked Sir Nick to launch a review of Facebook’s use of political lobbying firms.
Facebook, Amazon, Twitter and Google need to be taken down and divided up within them next year. They cannot be allowed to influence another election.