Nearly 70 percent of Facebook’s ordinary investors — those who don’t sit on the board or have any managerial power whatsoever — voted to oust CEO and founder, Mark Zuckerberg.
Two proposals were voted on that would significantly weaken Zuckerberg’s power by kicking him out of his chairman seat and, instead, bringing in an outsider to run Facebook’s board and hold him and his inner circle accountable.
Shareholders, Business Insider reported, are “furious” with the way Zuckerberg has handled Facebook’s repeated scandals — like its role in aiding election interference in 2016 and last year’s Cambridge Analytica data breach. Since Cambridge Analytica, the social media network’s stock has decreased in value to $164.15 as of Monday and has yet to rebound to last year’s high of $217.50.
More than 83 percent of those same investors also voted on a measure to eliminate Facebook’s dual-class share structure, according to BI. Under the current system, shareholders in class A have one vote per share while Class B shareholders — management and directors — get 10 votes per share.
Zuckerberg, in fact, owns about 75 percent of Class B shares, giving him roughly 60 percent of the voting power at Facebook. As a result, he and his colleagues voted down the measure to bring in an independent chairman and axed the motion to eliminate the class system.
“Investors are clearly concerned and want change,” said Jonas Kron, who runs the activist shareholder Trillium Asset Management — the firm that initiated the call for an independent chairman at Facebook. “This level of support is rarely seen in shareholder proposals.”
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