Meta spokesman Andy Stone tweeted that reports that CEO Mark Zuckerberg is stepping down next year are false.
Facebook parent company Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly decided to step down next year, according to people familiar with the matter. The sources also said the decision will not affect Meta’s meta-universe plans.
Over the past decade, Meta (formerly Facebook) has had a rough go of it, and the pressure on its founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been mounting. As a result, Silicon Valley and Wall Street have been filled with rumors and speculation about Meta’s future.
Now comes the news that Mark Zuckerberg has decided to step down next year, a decision that will not affect Meta’s Meta Universe investment plan. Meta Universe is a huge investment plan proposed by Mark Zuckerberg, and after about a year of transitioning to Meta Universe, Meta is paying a high cost for it.
In the third quarter of this year, Meta’s metaverse business unit, Reality Labs, posted a record loss of $3.7 billion, up from $2.6 billion a year ago and $2.8 billion in the previous quarter. Along with the huge loss, Mark Zuckerberg also said that the metaverse business would not be able to bring returns to the company in the short term.
In October, it was reported that investors were unhappy with Mark Zuckerberg’s plans to gamble on the metaverse. Investor Brad Gerstner also issued a harshly worded open letter saying Mark Zuckerberg was losing investor confidence.
Analysts say that while the person familiar with the matter stressed that Zuckerberg’s resignation would have no impact on Meta’s metaverse plans, it does not preclude a public relations effort to make people think that Mark Zuckerberg’s resignation was not due to the metaverse plans.
The person also said that while Mark Zuckerberg has withstood a lot of pressure over the years, this overestimation of public interest in Meta Universe will probably end Mark Zuckerberg’s long reign over Meta.
