Facebook today held its annual shareholder meeting and the group approved the formation of a new class of voting shares which will keep chief executive Mark Zuckerberg in control as long as he's with the company. It also re-elected its Board of Directors, including investors Marc Andreesseen and Peter Thiel.
Among the list of things set to be discussed include a proposal to issue Class C non-voting capital stock which Facebook announced in its last quarterly earnings. The company claimed that with its approval, Zuckerberg would retain voting control while also enabling the CEO and his wife, Dr. Priscilla Chan, to accelerate their philanthropic activities. Zuckerberg has said he will be giving away 99 percent of his family's shares to various initiatives to promote more equality in the world.
During the question and answer session of the meeting, Facebook's CEO said that he was planning on running the company “for a very long time,” which elicited applause from those in the room. He had been asked whether he would remain connected with Facebook while pursuing charitable and philanthropic activities.
Eight of Facebook's board of directors were up for re-election, including Peter Thiel. One of the original investors in Facebook, he has come under fire in the past few weeks after it was revealed that he was secretly backing former pro wrestler Hulk Hogan in his lawsuit against tech publication Gawker. Facebook has since addressed the issue with chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg saying that Thiel's actions are his own and don't represent the company.
If you're interested, Thiel wasn't in attendance at the shareholder meeting.
The move wasn't really surprising as Zuckerberg retains majority control of the company and had considerable influence on all the proposals. As a case in point, all of the shareholder-submitted proposals were rejected, including those asking Facebook to do reports on gender pay equity, giving shareholders more say in the company, and sustainability.
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Facebook shareholders vote to issue Class C shares that keep Zuckerberg in control
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