“No” is what Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated Tuesday when BuzzFeed News asked him if he had any plans to run for president. While the CEO of a major tech company may seem like an unlikely choice for the highest political office (although with Trump in the White House, is anything unlikely anymore?), rumors about Zuckerberg running have been floating around for a while, according to Fortune.
Some of Zuckerberg’s actions recently have hinted at a potential run for office— for example, he recently hired a former White House photographer to take his picture, announced plans to travel to 30 states where he’s never been, and said he thinks “religion is important” even though he’s an atheist, BuzzFeed points out. These do sound like things an aspiring politician might do to polish their public image and get to know the country better. But even if Zuckerberg never runs for office, he runs a company that weilds a huge amount of infuence over people’s media consumption. He knows he still has to answer to the public, as illustrated by his response to controversy over the role Facebook played in spreading fake news during the election.
Zuckerberg and his wife have started the Chan Zuckerberg Intiative, where they’re tackling massive goals like “helping cure, prevent or manage all diseases in our children’s lifetime.” So even though he’s told friends in private that he’s not planning to run for office, according to BuzzFeed, he clearly wants to utilize his success to make a difference.
Even if Zuckerberg were planning to run for president, do we have to worry about it just now? We just got done with this election, and there’s a lot of other worrying stuff going on at the moment.