Group Of Investors Attempting To Remove Mark Zuckerberg As Chairman Of Facebook

There is very little doubt that Mark Zuckerberg is one of the most powerful and richest people in the world, but he isn’t without those that doubt him. An activist group, made up of a consumer watchdog group and a few shareholders, is looking for a way to get Zuckerberg to give up his position as chairman of Facebook. They are planning to move forward to get more people to support their cause, but they have a long road ahead of them.

A report by the Washington Post is stating that a group known as SumOfUs has issued a proposal claiming the future success of Facebook is in danger. They state that the company’s success relies on having a “balance of power between the CEO and the board.”

The proposal states points out that Facebook needs to have greater accountability due to the serious issues that have come from hate speech, fake news, and online harassment.

“An independent board chair is a necessary first step to put Facebook’s board on the path to effective representation of the interests of all shareholders.”

A week ago, Facebook received the proposal from the SumOfUs, but the social media giant has not yet commented on it.

SumOfUs made full note of a decision made by Facebook last year that issued new, nonvoting stock, and they believe that having a single chairman and CEO could bring about huge problems. That decision made it possible for every single Facebook stockholder to receive two new shares of “Class C stock” for every existing share they had.

Included in that group of shareholders was also Mark Zuckerberg.

While this move does nothing to increase the value of investor’s holdings, it does split the stock from bigger, more expensive shares into smaller, cheaper shares. What that does is create a lot more Facebook shares that would allow Zuckerberg and his wife to keep his promise of selling off 99 percent of his Facebook shares for charity.

This move would create new stocks but also not force Mark Zuckerberg to give up any voting power he has in the company at all. While this is going on, The Sun reports that he is still working on funding the development of technology that will have the possibility of reading the minds of human beings.

As this continues, SumOfUs has a very difficult path ahead of them to have this proposal go anywhere.

In the past, SumOfUs brought forth petitions regarding the leadership and decisions of Facebook management, and they have had a lot of shareholders offer their signatures. Out of those 1,500 shareholders, SumOfUs reached out to 1,300 of them to see if there would be any interest in this latest proposal.

Only four of them have agreed to offer their assistance in the matter.

SumOfUs simply believes that Zuckerberg’s committees and groups are still under the control and order of Mark Zuckerberg. He is seen as the “only authority figure on the board,” and ultimately, decisions will be signed off on or made by him.

The proposal from SumOfUs is expected to be included in the annual shareholder meeting later this year.

Right now, the SumOfUs is making a lot of noise and receiving a good bit of attention, but they really don’t have a lot of backing at this time. Having only four investors agree to help in their cause of removing Mark Zuckerberg as chairman of Facebook is not a very strong start, but they are going to keep pushing ahead. If they want to have any real backing, the higher-up shareholders will need to be approached, but it this movement may die out before that ever happens.

[Featured Image by David Ramos/Getty Images]