It can't possibly be kosher for him to be President with this arrangement, can it? If Carter had to divest his peanut farm, why would we let a President retain a massive interest in the biggest media/marketing/surveillance platform in the country? It would make Berlusconi look like an amateur.
I no longer think that. Even massive, wholly overt corruption is apparently fine now. Along with a bunch of other stuff. There are no rules now as long as you can get elected, you're useful to one party or the other, and that party retains enough seats to block impeachment.
Berlusconi is precisely the kind of person who's in power now, and it's taking months of slow, grinding work to maybe, maybe catch him on something bad enough he can't ignore it, while he's plainly profiting from the office and hasn't attempted to avoid actual conflicts of interest, let alone the appearance of them, and that's not even the thing we're trying to throw him out over.
At the highest levels of American power, you can now openly be as corrupt as Berlusconi and... no one cares enough to do anything about it.
So yes, Zuck totally can. Which makes the prospect of his presidency all the more worrisome.
If he were to win I think he would be pressured to structure some kind of trust that prevents him from leveraging Facebook's political power in conjunction with the government.
> If he were to win I think he would be pressured to structure some kind of trust that prevents him from leveraging Facebook's political power in conjunction with the government.
That's the point, isn't it? It's happening right now without consequence, so why should it be different then?
Once these groups determine something to be 'fake news' they are set up to censor as they see fit. Pretty smart if it wasn't so evil.
The holiday thing is something to complain over.
But...
Since the original statement of the Secret Service paying for property they make use of has absolutely nothing to do with either of your questions, I believe you are a bit misguided.
It is completely normal for the Secret Service to pay for usage of property and/or services during their duty. It has been in place for some time and payments have been made to numerous persons of both parties for years.
The complaint is that money is going into Trump's bank account. It directly benefits him financially to go on vacations as often as possible when he stays at his own resorts, because he makes a cut off the tax dollars used to pay for his vacations.
Although, I wouldn't mind it being explained to me how he is.
Of course, at the time presidents were in the habit of divesting themselves of their conflicts.
... to his future political career. That's right, Zuck, get your strategic lying in. I'm sure you'll go far in politics.
Agreed, and he'd be a fool if he wasted his position on trying to be the President. He has a real capability to become akin to a modern day emperor if he does it right.
Zuckerberg is not only ridiculously successful but touches everyone's life everyday and people may feel an intimacy that doesn't exist.
Without being judgmental just looking at the dynamics he is going to win.
While the former is true, that's not why Trump won.
> Zuckerberg is not only ridiculously successful but touches everyone's life everyday and people may feel an intimacy that doesn't exist.
That same intimacy throws off a significant percentage of the population.
> Without being judgmental just looking at the dynamics he is going to win.
My analysis is that he doesn't have a chance. Assuming he runs as a Democrat, I think it'd be difficult to win the nomination and if he does, he'd get crushed in the general against Trump.
If I had a dime for every reason given for Trump's win, I could dive into a pool of them like Scrooge McDuck.
I think it's certainly a factor which made Trump seem credible as long as you didn't scrutinize his self-made mythology too hard, but it's not primarily why Trump won. If it were that simple, Mitt Romney would have won as well.
From his unscripted words [2], actions [3], and the company he keeps [4] I suspect his vision is some kind of techno-libertarian utopia where anything is legal as long as it's in the TOS - unless it's the bad thing and must be therefore be purged from the internet.
But considering Facebook's weird puritanical streak [5], and their recent refusal to reveal political ad information [6]. I'm left with this quote from Alpha Centauri:
> "Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
[1] https://www.recode.net/2017/2/16/14640460/mark-zuckerberg-fa...
[2] http://gawker.com/5636765/facebook-ceo-admits-to-calling-use...
[3] http://www.mercurynews.com/2013/10/10/mark-zuckerberg-buys-f...
[4] http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-defends-faceb...
[5] https://news.artnet.com/art-world/facebook-censors-caravaggi...
[6] https://www.yahoo.com/news/fire-facebook-refuses-disclose-po...
Those who join us need only give up only half of their humanity - the illogical, ill-tempered, and disordered half, commonly thought of as 'right-brain' functioning. In exchange, the 'left-brain' capacities are increased to undreamed potentials. The tendency of Biologicals to cling instead to their individual personalities can only be attributed to archaic evolutionary tendencies.
--Prime Function Aki Zuckerberg-5, "Convergence"
Zuckerberg, on the other hand, may not be able to spin his negatives into positives quite as handily.
His rallies dwarfed Clinton's.
I just removed "young hip" and it describes Trump.
Now look where we are
It depends on if people have convictions against those complaints or they were simply "not our candidate" excuses.
Or maybe Mark will divest completely.
He and Andreessen specifically colluded to restructure Facebook stock so that he could take a LOA and work for the government while maintaining voting control over Facebook.
That's not something you do when you plan to divest.
https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/04/connector-in-chief/
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/08/zuckerberg-hires-cli...
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/01/10/chan-zuckerberg-initia...
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/02/zuckerberg-hires-fo...
https://www.businessinsider.nl/mark-zuckerberg-personal-goal...
* Says he’s no longer an atheist, "questioned" religious matters, he broke through his skepticism and now believes religion to be “very important.”
* Restructuring of Facebook stock trough the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. In the SEC filing it says that he can take a leave of absence from Facebook and still retain voting control of the company if he goes to work for the government.
* Hired a top Democratic campaign manager David Plouffe into the iniative. Plouffe was Obama's campaign manager.
* Hired top Republican campaign manager Ken Mehlman into the iniative. Mehlman is a former George W. Bush campaign manager and RNC chairman.
* Promised to visit all 50 states and meet people.
* Hires a former top adviser to President Barack Obama and the chief strategist for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.
This is not PR as usual for CEO. He is into something big.