Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Interested In Going into Government, Lawsuit Reveals

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has thought about going into government, according to legal documents obtained by Bloomberg.

The documents are part of filings of a lawsuit brought by Facebook shareholders against the board, which is accused of not representing investors’ interests when agreeing to Zuckerberg’s proposed stock plan. Zuckerberg, who holds a majority share of voting Facebook stock, wanted to be able to sell his shares to fund his philanthropic efforts, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, without losing control of the company. Zuckerberg then proposed the creation of a new class of shares for himself that would still let him stay in control of the company, documents show. The committee ended up agreeing to Zuckerberg's plan.

Facebook board member Erskine Bowles, who is also former President Bill Clinton's chief of staff, was "worried that one of the concessions Zuckerberg wanted — to allow the billionaire to serve two years in government without losing control of Facebook — would look particularly irresponsible," court documents say according to Bloomberg.

In a series of texts, Netscape cofounder Marc Andreessen, who is one of the board members on the committee and a Silicon Valley investor, is being accused in the lawsuit of trying to convince Bowles that Zuckerberg’s stock plan was solid.

Andreessen, who runs the venture-capital fund Andreessen Horowitz, texted Zuckerberg in early March before a call with the committee. In the texts, Andreessen told the Facebook CEO he would have to figure out "how to define the gov’t service thing without freaking out shareholders that you are losing commitment.''

"I think the biggest remaining issue is still around the government service," Andreessen texted afterwards, according to texts in court documents seen by The Guardian.

"Erskine is just massively uncomfortable with you getting to low economic ownership and then going off on leave with no involvement by the board and retaining control,'' Andreessen said. "We rediscuss it on every call ... I'm going to try to drag it over the line one more time. ''

Andreessen continued :

"He's worried that it's the straw that breaks the camel's back on the optics of good governance."

"He's worried it's the thing people will point to on announcement and say 'what the [expletive] are you guys doing agreeing to this' Particularly since he thinks gov't service would require you to give up control of FB anyway and it's a moot point."

"My counter argument is that because it's likely a moot point let's just give on it and it will probably never matter."

Court documents say Andreessen is specifically accused of a conflict of interest because he continually communicated with Zuckerberg while serving on the committee which was expected to make an independent decision on the CEO’s stock plan.

"Facebook is confident that the special committee engaged in a thorough and fair process to negotiate a proposal in the best interests of Facebook and its shareholders," the company told Bloomberg.

As for Zuckerberg’s public service aspirations, it was not revealed in the lawsuit which role he would serve in. If he were to go into government, he would follow PayPal co-founder and Facebook board member Peter Thiel. Thiel is currently on president-elect Donald Trump’s transition team.