Facebook CEO Zuckerberg Invited to Testify by Senate Judiciary
Zuckerberg invited to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee next month.
(Bloomberg) -- Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg was invited to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee next month by Chairman Chuck Grassley as questions mount over its data privacy practices.
The invitation asking Zuckerberg to answer questions at an April 10 hearing comes as the Federal Trade Commission confirmed it’s investigating Facebook’s privacy practices after reports the company allowed political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica to harvest 50 million users’ data.
Two other congressional committees also have invited Zuckerberg to testify, and he has said he’d agree if he is the right person to appear. Grassley, an Iowa Republican, also invited Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to appear before his panel to discuss data privacy.
The fallout from disclosures about Cambridge Analytica, which did work for President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, has put Facebook under scrutiny in the U.S. and Europe and battered its stock. Facebook has lost about $100 billion in market value in the past 10 days, and the shares fell as much as 6.5 percent Monday in New York.
Last week Senate Commerce Chairman John Thune and ranking Democrat Bill Nelson issued a joint statement calling on Zuckerberg to testify "in the coming weeks." The request follows a similar one from the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
To contact the reporter on this story: Erik Wasson in Washington at ewasson@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Joe Sobczyk at jsobczyk@bloomberg.net, Laurie Asséo
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