Meta Rubbishes Reports of CEO Zuckerberg's Exit In Early 2023The clarification came from Meta spokesperson Andy Stone in response to a user's tweet carrying a report by news website The Leak about Zuckerberg's departure due to investors' frustrations with his money-losing metaverse project

Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook) has rubbished a recent rumour claiming that its co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg would be stepping down next year.

The clarification came from Meta spokesperson Andy Stone in response to a user's tweet carrying a report by news website The Leak about Zuckerberg's departure from the company in 2023 due to investors' frustrations with his plans to double down on investment in the money-losing metaverse project being worked upon by Reality Labs. Stone replied to the user, "This is false."

Interestingly, The Leak's report temporaily caused Meta's shares to rise by 1 per cent. The company has had rough going in the recent past: Reality Labs lost $3.7 billion in Q3 2022; Meta's revenue fell in the last two quarters; 13 per cent of its global workforce, i.e. roughly 11,000 employees, has been laid off.

Continued operation at losses, especially in unchanged macroeconomic conditions, could likely produce more firings, adding to the grim atmosphere that currently pervades the tech industry.

“很多人可能不同意这种investment. But from what I can tell, I think that this is going to be a very important thing, and I think it would be a mistake for us to not focus on any of these areas, which I think are going to be fundamentally important to the future," Zuckerberg had recently said while defending his metaverse project before investors.