Earlier, theLeak reported, citing an insider source, that Zuckerberg is expected to leave Meta, the rebranded name of Facebook Inc., by the end of this year.
"This is false," Stone said in a tweet responding to theLeak story.
Zuckerberg started Facebook while he was at Harvard University in 2004, at the age of 19, as a site for students to match names with photos of classmates. He took Facebook public in May 2012, becoming its Chief Executive Officer, and now owns about 13% of the company's stock.
Facebook Inc. was rebranded Meta in October 2021 to reflect the metaverse - a virtual world in which consumers spend increasing parts of their lives, based on artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual reality (VR) technology. This is an important new phase in the digital world that Meta would increasingly find itself in, Zuckerberg said. Despite the name change, the social media site still operated as Facebook with day-to-day users.
Since the rebranding, Meta has also invested billions of dollars on new AI and VR technologies that have not impressed investors.
Meta, which also owns Instagram, said revenue fell 4% in the three months from July through September compared to a year earlier, from $29 billion to $27.7 billion. Its stock price is also down 70% from its peak.
Brad Gerstner, whose fund Altimeter Capital owns hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of Meta shares, issued a scathing open letter on his thoughts about the missteps at Meta in October, and Financial Times followed up with a report that said many other investors were frustrated as well with Zuckerberg’s plan to double down on investment into the Metaverse.
"The birds are flying south at Meta as the company expects serious executive changes," TheLeak said, adding that the Information it obtained suggests that "Zuckerberg has decided to step down himself."
TheLeak said it has reached out to Meta for a response.
*Facebook and its parent company Meta are banned in Russia over extremist activities.