Elon Musk takes a swipe at Mark Zuckerberg's ironclad control of Meta, says it's set up so even 'Mark Zuckerberg the 14th' will be in charge of Facebook and Instagram

Elon Musk disses Mark Zuckerberg
Associated Press

Elon Musk compared Mark Zuckerberg's role at Meta to that of a monarch.
The Facebook founder owns the majority of Meta's voting shares.
The Tesla CEO said that if he owned Twitter he would avoid a similar stronghold.

Elon Musk dissed Mark Zuckerberg's lasting control over Meta during an interview on Thursday.

Musk was asked about his recent offer to buy Twitter during an interview at the TED conference in Vancouver. The interviewer, Chris Anderson, asked Musk whether his status as the richest man in the world and one of the platform's top influencers could pose a conflict of interest.

Musk took the opportunity to take a swipe at Zuckerberg and even appeared to compare the Facebook founder to King Louis XIV.

"As for media sort of ownership, I mean, you've got Mark Zuckerberg owning Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp, and with a share ownership structure that will have Mark Zuckerberg the 14th still controlling those entities," Musk said.

"Like literally," Musk added amid laughter from the audience. "We won't have that at Twitter."

The Tesla CEO was referencing Zuckerberg's stronghold on Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. The Facebook founder holds 55% of the company's voting shares — meaning Zuckerberg essentially has complete veto power over other shareholders when it comes to the company's future. The company has a dual-class stock structure that provides Zuckerberg, select executive managers and directors with supervoting power inasmuch as one of their shares is equivalent to 10 votes, while other shareholders are limited to one vote per share.

A Meta spokesperson didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

Tesla doesn't have a dual-class share structure, but Musk still enjoys considerable influence. Musk is the electric carmaker's largest individual shareholder with a 17% stake. While Musk doesn't have the same level of control of the company as Zuckerberg does with Meta, Tesla does have supermajority voting rules that require the approval of two-thirds of shares to pass major changes, providing Musk a level of veto power.

If he were to successfully buy Twitter, Musk said that he would structure the company in a way that would avoid any perception of a conflict of interest, including making the platform's code publicly accessible.

"I wouldn't personally be in their editing tweets." Musk said. "But, you'll know if something was done to, to promote demo or otherwise affect a tweet."

Musk said his offer to buy Twitter is "not a way to make money," but a bid to protect freedom of speech. The Tesla CEO also appeared to diss Meta's handling of moderation efforts. The social media company has faced pressure from both sides on its handling of COVID-19 misinformation, as well as the Capitol siege. Musk appears to believe in erring on the side of allowing the dissemination of information so long as it is legal in the countries the platform operates in.

"I'm not saying that I have all the answers here, but I do think that we want to be just very reluctant to delete things," Musk said. "And just be very cautious with permanent bans. Timeouts, I think, are better than permanent bans."

Musk and Zuckerberg have a longstanding feud. In 2016, Zuckerberg issued a public statement saying he was "deeply disappointed" in SpaceX after one of the company's rockets destroyed a Facebook satellite. Musk has said Facebook gives him "the willies." Most recently, Musk criticized Facebook for how it handled the siege on the Capitol in 2021.

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