The Leak first reported that Mark Zuckerberg will step down as the CEO of Meta in 2023. The publication claimed the Facebook co-founder is resigning due to “immense investor pressure” amid mounting losses from the company’s ambitious Metaverse project. The word spread like a wildfire and was all over the internet in no time. But only for Meta to dismiss it a few hours later. Responding to a tweet that shared the original report from The Leak, Andy Stone said: “This is false”. Meta’s communications department didn’t release any other official statement regarding this matter. So while it has claimed that the reports of Mark Zuckerberg resigning from the company next year are not true, it seems the investor pressure is certainly on the Meta CEO.
Mark Zuckerberg is under investor pressure for mounting losses from Metaverse
Metaverse, which is Zuckerberg’s long-term VR (virtual reality) bet, has become a money pit for the company. Meta’s Q3 2022 financial report revealed that it suffered losses of $3.67 billion from the Reality Labs division. Reality Labs is responsible for the social media behemoth’s VR and AR (augmented reality) efforts. The losses widened almost 40 percent from $2.63 billion during the same period a year ago. Worse yet, Meta expects the division to bleed even more money next year. And this comes at a time when its ad revenues are declining too, owing to political tensions and economic uncertainties around the world. It’s no surprise that Meta investors are opposing Zuckerberg’s continued investments in Metaverse. An open letter to the company from an investor last month urged it to limit investment in the project. Meanwhile, as a major cost-cutting measure, Zuckerberg recently announced a massive job cut at Meta, which is the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. The firm is laying off more than 11,000 employees, which is about 13% of its total global workforce. The social media behemoth has also paused hiring through Q1 next year. Zuckerberg took full responsibility for leading the company to this state. He said the mass hiring during the pandemic was a wrong decision as the e-commerce uptick during that time didn’t persist in the post-pandemic era. It now remains to be seen if the Meta CEO succumbs to the mounting investor pressure.
