Facebook shareholders back proposal to remove Zuckerberg as chairman

Shareholders support proposal to dismiss Mark Zuckerberg as chairman of the board, as he has mismanaged several well-known scandals.

On Wednesday, several public funds holding shares in Facebook Inc. supported the proposal to dismiss Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg, saying the social media giant had mismanaged several high-profile scandals.

According to a report by NBC, treasurers from Illinois, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania, as well as New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer, co-tabled the proposal. They joined the Trillium Asset Management hedge fund, which bought it at the table in June.

Rhode Island State Treasurer Seth Magaziner said that the latest proposal was still worth filing as a way of drawing attention to Facebook’s problems and how to solve them.

“This will allow us to force a conversation at the annual meeting, and from now until then in the court of public opinion,” Magaziner said in a telephone interview.

The proposal, to be voted at the company’s annual meeting of shareholders in May 2019, calls on Facebook’s board of directors to ensure that the role of chairman of the board of directors is independent. “Facebook plays an outsized role in our society and our economy. They have a social and financial responsibility to be transparent that’s why we’re demanding independence and accountability in the company’s boardroom,” Stringer said.

Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs said in an interview that, while an independent chair might not have prevented all the issues, “there might have been fewer of these problems and less of a drop in share price” at the company.

The proposal indicated that the lack of independent chair and control of the board of directors had contributed to Facebook’s “mishandling” of a number of serious controversies, including Russia’s interference in US elections and the Cambridge Analytica data leak.

Zuckerberg has about 60% of the vote, according to a report tabled in April. Previous attempts to fire Zuckerberg as president have failed.