Facebook shareholders want to remove Zuckerberg from the chair of the board of directors

David Paul Morris / Bloomberg via Getty Images

The “palm of leadership”, on top of which sits Mark Zuckerberg, swayed a little. She began to shake the interested parties, radeyuschie for the fate of Facebook.

Members of the consumer protection organization SumOfUs are unhappy with the way Mark performs the duties of the chairman of the board of directors, the VentureBeat portal reports .

SumOfUs is positioning itself as an online community that calls large corporations accountable for global issues such as climate change, the denial of workers' rights, corruption and the seizure of power in the company.

According to Lisa Lindsley, SumofUs Capital Markets Advisor, about 333,000 people signed a petition demanding improved corporate responsibility on Facebook, 1,500 of whom are shareholders of Facebook.
')
Zuckerberg owns 4 million Class A shares and 419 million Class B shares, which is 53.8% of all voting shares of the company. B shares are not traded on the stock exchange, each of them provides 10 votes, while shares A are traded, each of them is 1 vote.

In April 2016, Facebook’s leadership, at the initiative of Zuckerberg, decided to issue 5.7 billion shares of the third type - C. It was assumed that two shares of class C could be exchanged for one share of classes A or B, but there would be no voting rights for class C.

Such a share capital structure should have allowed Zuckerberg to fulfill his promise - to transfer 99% of his shares to the non-profit charitable organization Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, which he created together with his wife Priscilla Chan. At the same time, it was easy to keep control: it is enough to throw off 99% of non-voting shares of class C.

However, the votes of the remaining shareholders with the release of new-class securities, on the contrary, turned out to be “blurred”, and they cannot make decisions on key issues of the company.

TechCrunch notes that the new equity structure allows Zuckerberg to pursue a political career without leaving Facebook.

SumOfUs admits that Zuckerberg received approval for these changes through backroom manipulations. They note that the resignation of Zuckerberg and the appointment of an independent chairman of the board of directors could be "the first step towards the effective representation of the interests of all shareholders."

However, Mark’s position and weight in the company are such that 99% of the shareholders may vote for retirement, but their decision will not have legal force.

Zuckerberg is one of the largest shareholders of the company. In addition, the decision on his resignation may adversely affect the financial performance of Facebook.

Moreover, it is common practice to appoint the CEO to the post of chairman of the board. It is used in Tesla, Bank of America, Walt Disney Company, IBM, Amazon, Netflix and other companies.

Against the background of Facebook’s financial statements for 2016, Zuckerberg’s fortune increased by $ 3 billion per day and reached $ 59 billion. After the regular session, Facebook shares rose by 2.66% to $ 136.77.

According to Forbes, the state of the 32-year-old Facebook founder was previously estimated at $ 55.8 billion. Zuckerberg ranks fifth in the list of the richest people on the planet. According to the Fortune business magazine, in 2016, Mark Zuckerberg became the businessman of the year.