Investors Want Zuckerberg Out as Facebook Engineer Quits Over Repressive Workplace
by R. Cort Kirkwood
TheNewAmerican.com
Thursday, 18 October 2018
As Facebook grapples with trouble from conservative critics and what it claims is misinformation it wants to stop, chieftain Mark Zuckerberg (shown) faces yet another stockholders rebellion.
Big investors want Zuckerberg out and a neutral chairman appointed because of the social-media behemoth’s dipping stock price and bruised reputation.
In 2017, Zuckerberg, the company’s majority shareholder, put down a similar rebellion, and neither is this one likely to succeed.
But it is a sign that Facebook faces trouble beyond its reputation as hostile to conservatives.
Shareholder Revolt
According to Reuters, “four major U.S. public funds that hold shares in Facebook Inc on Wednesday proposed removing Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg as chairman following several high-profile scandals and said they hoped to gain backing from larger asset managers.”
Those shareholders aren’t exactly small fry in the investment world: The treasurers of Rhode Island and Pennsylvania, as well New York City Comptroller, filed the proposal. “They oversee money including pension funds and joined activist and original filer Trillium Asset Management,” the wire service reported.
The officials know they will lose because Zuckerberg owns the majority of Facebook shares. The goal: Send a message.
The proposal in question, Reuters reported, seeks an independent board chairman, and “cites controversies that have hurt the reputation of the world’s largest social media network, including the unauthorized sharing of user information, the proliferation of fake news, and foreign meddling in U.S. elections.”
As The New American reported this summer, Facebook’s year on the stock market hasn’t been good. On July 26, the social-media giant’s stock price sank 20 percent, and the company lost $120 billion in market capitalization, the largest one-day dive in history. The share price dropped from $217.50 to $176.26
Zuckerberg took a bath, too. His personal fortune dropped from $71 billion to $55.1 billion.
At yesterday’s close, the stock price was even lower, $159.42. That’s 26.7 percent less than the $217.50 of July 25, the eve of the big collapse, and 9.5 percent lower than the price at market’s close on July 26.
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