According to votes from Facebook’s annual shareholder meeting last week, 68 percent of outside investors want to see an independent chairman appointed in place of Mark Zuckerberg. Due to Zuckerberg’s chokehold on voting shares of the company, the investors’ vote will have no bearing on his role at the top of the Silicon Valley giant.
Business Insider reports that according to a filing on Monday, Facebook released information on how investors voted on a number of proposals at the company’s annual shareholder meeting last week. According to the report, 68 percent of ordinary investors who are not part of management or members of Facebook’s board want to remove Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg as chairman of the board and place an independent figure in the role. 51 percent of outside investors voted in favor of a similar proposal last year.
Shareholders are reportedly angered over the handling of a number of recent Facebook scandals including allegations of election interference on Facebook and the Cambridge Analytica data breach. Facebook stock has suffered as a result of the scandals and still hasn’t managed to hit its record high of $217.50 on July 25, 2018. Shares fell Monday by 7.5 percent to $164.15 following the announcement of a number of potential antitrust investigations into Silicon Valley tech giants by the DOJ and FTC.
83.2 percent of outside shareholders also voted in favor of a proposal to remove Facebook’s dual-class share structure. Class A shareholders have one vote per share currently, while Class B shareholders get 10 votes per share. Facebook management and directors control Class B shares. Zuckerberg himself owns more than 75 percent of all Class B stock which gives him 60 percent control at Facebook.
Jonas Kron, who runs activist shareholder Trillium Asset Management, the firm that proposed an independent chairman, stated: “Investors are clearly concerned and want change. This level of support is rarely seen in shareholder proposals.”
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or email him at lnolan@breitbart.com
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