Zuckerberg: I ​​have no intention of stepping down as Facebook chairman

Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, says in an interview with CNN that he has no intention of stepping down as chairman of the board. He discussed, among other things, a recent story in which Facebook had engaged an agency to blacken Apple and Google.

Zuckerberg says in an interview with CNN that he has no intention of stepping down as chairman of the board. “At the moment that doesn’t seem logical to me,” says the Facebook CEO. He also defends top woman Sheryl Sandberg, despite the frequent criticism of her, including about how she handles various crises at Facebook. “Sheryl is an important part of this company and she leads a lot of efforts to address the biggest issues.” He says he hopes to work with her for decades to come.

The Facebook founder says it was only after reading the story in the New York Times that he first heard of the report that Facebook had hired a PR agency to blackmail Apple and Google with negative reporting. He says it is not clear to him that the story in the newspaper is correct. Zuckerberg reports that some aspects of the story have already been denied by Facebook in advance, but that the newspaper decided to publish it anyway.

The criticism of Facebook includes that Definers was founded by a Republican political strategist and that not only competitors were blacked out, but also Facebook critics were linked to George Soros. The CNN interviewer pointed out that this is a common tactic of anti-Semites and alt-right groups. Zuckerberg says he wasn’t happy about this part of the coverage and that’s what prompted him to dig deeper into it.

TechCrunch reports that an internal Facebook memo has surfaced, indicating that Facebook’s head of communications, Elliot Schrage, is taking responsibility for hiring PR firm Definers. In the memo, Schrage says he gave permission to hire Definers and other PR firms. He says he should have known the company would step outside his mandate.