© El Comercio/GDA/Zuma Press/Bloomberg BusinessweekMark Zuckerberg
Technically speaking, Mark Zuckerberg has been on paternity leave. In late August his wife, Priscilla Chan, gave birth to their second child, a girl. But though Zuckerberg, the chief executive officer of
Facebook Inc., stayed away from the office for a month after the delivery, he has been utterly unable to avoid what's become a second full-time job: managing an escalating series of political crises.
In early September, Facebook disclosed that it sold $100,000 in political ads during the 2016 election to buyers who it later learned were
connected to the Russian government. Richard Burr of North Carolina and Mark Warner of Virginia, the most senior Republican and Democratic members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, have said they're
considering holding a hearing, in which case Zuckerberg could be asked to testify.
Meanwhile, special counsel Robert Mueller has made Facebook a focus of his investigation into collusion between the Russian government and Donald Trump's campaign. A company official says it's "in regular contact with members and staff on the Hill" and has "had numerous meetings over the course of many months" with Warner. On Sept. 21, Zuckerberg said the company
would turn over the ads to Congress and would do more to limit interference in elections in the future. Facebook acknowledges that it has already turned over records to Mueller, which suggests, first, that the special counsel had a search warrant and, second, that Mueller believes something criminal happened on Zuckerberg's platform.
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