Have Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg and Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg “drifted apart” over the company’s handling of policy issues? A forthcoming book, which was excerpted in Thursday’s New York Times, suggests that they have.
In An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook’s Battle for Domination, out from Harper next week, Times reporters Cecilia Kang and Sheera Frankel claim that although Zuckerberg and Sandberg outwardly appear as close as ever, there has been a rift behind closed doors.
In the excerpt, adapted and published under the headline “Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg’s Partnership Did Not Survive Trump,” the authors allege that while Zuckerberg formerly relied on Sandberg to do CEO work “he found boring,” 13 years after her hiring he “now understands that he cannot outsource some of those duties.”
The authors write that Zuckerberg is “generally is less swayed by Ms. Sandberg’s view” and has become “critical of her handling of public relations related to election interference” and a March 2018 scandal following revelations that Trump-aligned political consulting group Cambridge Analytica had used Facebook-harvested data to target voters.
“The Trump era tested a central relationship at Facebook—between Ms. Sandberg and Mr. Zuckerberg—and she became increasingly isolated. Her role as the C.E.O.’s second-in-command was less certain with his elevation of several other executives, and with her diminishing influence in Washington,” write the authors, who interviewed hundreds of former and current Facebook employees for the book. “The view from inside the upper echelons of the company was clear: It felt as though Facebook was no longer led by a No. 1 and No. 2, but a No. 1 and many.”
A Facebook spokeswoman, Dani Lever, denied the existence of a rift between Zuckerberg and Sandberg, telling the Times that “Sheryl’s role at the company has not changed.”
An Ugly Truth is set for publication on July 13.
Amy Reiter is a writer in Brooklyn.
