Facebook investors pressurizes Mark Zuckerberg to step down as CEO: Reports
![Zuckerberg](http://images.catchnews.com/upload/2017/04/27/FACEBOOK_NEW-ANIT-FAKE-STRATEGY_163292239-mark-zuckerberg-2_36753_140373_730x419-m.jpg)
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has come under the radar of the investors who want him to quit as CEO after New York Times investigation suggested that the social network hired a Republican-owned political consulting and PR firm that "dug up dirt on its competitors".
According to a report in The Guardian on Saturday, Jonas Kron, Senior Vice President at Trillium Asset Management which owns a substantial stake in Facebook," called on Mark Zuckerberg to step down as board chairman in the wake of the report".
"Facebook is behaving like it's a special snowflake. It's not. It is a company and companies need to have a separation of chair and CEO," Jonas Kron was quoted as saying.
The New York Times report suggested that Facebook hired Definers Public Affairs, a Washington, D.C.-based conservative firm which did PR work for the social networking giant "and dug up dirt on the company's competitors and its critics".
However, Zuckerberg in a press conference denied that he knows any such firm.
"After reading the article, I got on the phone with our team and we are no longer working with this firm," he said.
Definers allegedly "encouraged the depiction of Facebook's critics as anti-Semites and had published news articles criticising Facebook's competitors".
According to TechCrunch, founded by a Republican campaign manager known for his dirt-digging prowess, Definers is far from a normal, politically neutral contractor.
Facebook said that it used the consultant Definers Public Affairs to look into the funding of "Freedom from Facebook" to demonstrate that it was not simply a spontaneous grassroots campaign, as it claimed, "but supported by a well-known critic of our company," presumably liberal financier George Soros.
"To suggest that this was an anti-Semitic attack is reprehensible and untrue," the company added.