WhatsApp co-founder, who sold his company to Facebook, just told his followers to delete it
It’s turning out to be a really bad week to be Mark Zuckerberg.
Not only has the Facebook CEO lost more than $6.7 billion over the past two days as the social media giant’s stock tumbled, but now one of the co-founders of a company he bought is urging people to delete their Facebook accounts amid the turmoil over its data scandal.
Brian Acton, the co-founder of WhatsApp, which Facebook acquired in 2014 for $19 billion, took to Twitter late Tuesday to urge his more than 27,000 followers to delete Facebook, saying, “It is time.”
The former executive, who left the company last year to start another one, is among the millions of people who are outraged after learning that a consulting firm that was used by Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, Cambridge Analytica, gathered data on more than 50 million Facebook users without permission.
Facebook promptly announced that it had suspended its contract with the firm after learning about the data breach, and Cambridge Analytica’s board said Tuesday that it had suspended its CEO, Alexander Nix, pending a full, independent investigation.
Still, Zuckerberg and Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg have been mum on the scandal since it broke last week, fueling the criticism from both users and investors as they watched the company’s shares tumble more than 6% over the past two days. Zuckerberg lost more than $6.7 billion.
Since late Tuesday, Acton’s tweet received more than 16,000 likes and 8,100 retweets, with many followers tweeting back that they have since deleted their Facebook accounts amid the turmoil.
Both Facebook and WhatsApp declined to comment to FOX Business regarding the tweet.