Facebook investors have increased pressure on Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg to step down, a media report said on Saturday.
New York Times recently published a report revealing that Facebook hired a Republican-owned political consulting and PR firm that ‘dug up dirt on its competitors’.
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According to a report in The Guardian, Jonas Kron, Senior Vice President at Trillium Asset Management which owns a substantial stake in Facebook, called on Mark Zuckerberg to step down as board chairman in the wake of the report.
“Facebook is behaving like it’s a special snowflake. It’s not. It is a company and companies need to have a separation of chair and CEO,” Jonas Kron was quoted as saying.
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The New York Times report suggested that Facebook hired Definers Public Affairs, a Washington, DC-based conservative firm which did PR work for the social networking giant.
In a press call, Zuckerberg denied he had any prior knowledge about this firm.
“After reading the article, I got on the phone with our team and we are no longer working with this firm,” he clarified.
Another Facebook investor Natasha Lamb from Arjuna Capital said the combined role of chairman and chief executive means that ‘Facebook can avoid properly fixing problems inside the company, the other reports stated.
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In a statement, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg also denied any knowledge of the firm.
Facebook said that it used the consultant Definers Public Affairs to look into the funding of ‘Freedom from Facebook’ to demonstrate that it was not simply a spontaneous grassroots campaign.
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