Zuckerberg on stepping down as Facebook CEO: 'That's not the plan'

November 21, 2018 10:58

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been under fire over the social media's network's many missteps, with the New York Times weighing in with its report last week that the company's top executives tried to first conceal and then play down the Russian interference in Facebook.

In his first interview since the expose, Zuckerberg spoke to CNN Business's Laurie Segall at Facebook's headquarters in Menlo Park, California.

Right off the bat he ruled out stepping down as the Facebook CEO, saying, "That's not the plan." Nor is there any possibility of his second in command, COO Sheryl Sandberg, leaving.

"Sheryl is a really important part of this company and is leading a lot of the efforts for a lot of the biggest issues that we have. She's been an important partner to me for ten years. I'm really proud of the work that we've done together and I hope that we work together for decades more to come," he tells CNN Business.

About the damning NYT report itself, Zuckerberg says, "It is not clear to me at all that the report is right. A lot of the things that were in that report, we talked to the reporters ahead of time and told them that from everything that we'd seen, that wasn't true and they chose to print it anyway."

"A lot of the criticism around the biggest issues has been fair, but I do think that if we are going to be real, there is this bigger picture as well, which is that we have a different world view than some of the folks who are covering us."

About the decision to not take down then US presidential candidate Donald Trump's controversial 2015 statement about Muslim immigration into the country, and if it was done as to 'appease political leaders,' Zuckerberg says, "I think it's very important that people have the opportunity to hear from what political leaders are saying," adding that Facebook's content policies give "special deference" to newsworthy content, CNN Business reports, here.

"I think we did the right thing there," Zuckerberg says.

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