Facebook's chief product officer is leaving — perhaps because he doesn't like Zuckerberg's new plans


Facebook's scandals may have taken their toll.
Chris Cox, the company's chief product officer who's been with Facebook for 13 years, announced Thursday he was leaving the company. He was joined by WhatsApp head Chris Daniels — two departures that may signal some displeasure with Mark Zuckerberg's new privacy-focused plans, Wired suggests.
Last week, Zuckerberg unveiled an ambitious yet vague plan to spin Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp into a "privacy-focused communications platform." Cox mentioned the project in his goodbye message to Facebook, and said it needs "leaders who are excited to see the new direction through." As Wired notes, that sounds like Cox wasn't thrilled about it.
Still, Zuckerberg only had good things to say about Cox and Daniels in a public message about their departures. Cox was one of Facebook's first 15 engineers, and was characterized as "the new Mark Zuckerberg" in a recent Wired profile. Daniels had overseen WhatsApp since its founders left the company amid "disagreements" with Zuckerberg last year, The New York Times notes.
Zuckerberg's announcement was seemingly prompted by more than a year of scandals, during which Facebook essentially sold user data and leaked a lot more of it. Cox marks the first top executive to leave after the wave of disasters, though Zuckerberg mentioned in his Thursday message to employees that Cox had thought about leaving since 2016.
Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.
-
The allegations of Christian genocide in Nigeria
The Explainer West African nation has denied claims from US senator and broadcaster
-
The best sherries to try this autumn
The Week Recommends The warming tipple from sunny Spain is an underrated cold-weather staple
-
London’s best breakfasts and brunches
The Week Recommends However you like your eggs in the morning, these memorable restaurants have you covered
-
Gold tops $4K per ounce, signaling financial unease
Speed Read Investors are worried about President Donald Trump’s trade war
-
Electronic Arts to go private in record $55B deal
speed read The video game giant is behind ‘The Sims’ and ‘Madden NFL’
-
New York court tosses Trump's $500M fraud fine
Speed Read A divided appeals court threw out a hefty penalty against President Trump for fraudulently inflating his wealth
-
Trump said to seek government stake in Intel
Speed Read The president and Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan reportedly discussed the proposal at a recent meeting
-
US to take 15% cut of AI chip sales to China
Speed Read Nvidia and AMD will pay the Trump administration 15% of their revenue from selling artificial intelligence chips to China
-
NFL gets ESPN stake in deal with Disney
Speed Read The deal gives the NFL a 10% stake in Disney's ESPN sports empire and gives ESPN ownership of NFL Network
-
Samsung to make Tesla chips in $16.5B deal
Speed Read Tesla has signed a deal to get its next-generation chips from Samsung
-
FCC greenlights $8B Paramount-Skydance merger
Speed Read The Federal Communications Commission will allow Paramount to merge with the Hollywood studio Skydance