Sources: this June, Zuckerberg told ~50 execs that Facebook was at war and he'd act more decisively, leading to reorgs, key departures, tension with Sandberg
including those who “run” it. http://www.wsj.com/... Venkat Ananth / @venkatananth : “Ms. Sandberg later confided in friends that the exchange rattled her, and she wondered if she should be worried about her job.” - Wow. Worth reading this piece by @dseetharaman. http://www.wsj.com/... Deepa Seetharaman / @dseetharaman : Some more deets: this spring, Zuckerberg told Sheryl he was unhappy with the public fallout from and Facebook's handling of the Cambridge Analytica crisis. He blamed her + the comms team for it, per sources. The two are on better footing now. https://www.wsj.com/... Deepa Seetharaman / @dseetharaman : Zuckerberg sought advice from his mentor Bill Gates after Cambridge. At 1 point, FB considered bundling its comms / policy / legal teams under 1 person. That led to his top lawyer resigning & later backtracking when $FB couldn't fill the job. https://www.wsj.com/... Deepa Seetharaman / @dseetharaman : Hard to understate the extent to which Zuckerberg & Sandberg are focused on media scrutiny of $FB. After the @nytimes detailed its work with Definers, both execs pinned it on the comms team. Many of them were stung by Sandberg's comments. http://www.wsj.com/... Tom Scocca / @tomscocca : The meta-story seems to be Sandberg adopting a wartime footing against Zuckerberg http://twitter.com/... Matt Stoller / @matthewstoller : Facebook is in internal meltdown. Top execs are now leaking on a regular basis. And this company has creepy levels of surveillance on employees. http://twitter.com/... Brad Reagan / @reaganbrad : Sheryl Sandberg told friends she wondered whether she should be worried about her job. Revealing look inside FB from @dseetharaman https://www.wsj.com/... @ceciliakang : Bill Gates told Zuck to put a president-level exec in charge of policy/crisis comms. Zuck blamed Sandberg for Cambridge. New from @dseetharaman https://www.wsj.com/... via @WSJ Sally Shin / @sallyshin : “This spring, Mr. Zuckerberg told Ms. Sandberg, 49, that he blamed her and her teams for the public fallout over Cambridge Analytica, the research firm that inappropriately accessed private data on Facebook users and used it for political research..” http://twitter.com/... Nick Confessore / @nickconfessore : New @WSJ story from @dseetharaman suggests Sheryl Sandberg was on thin ice with Zuckerberg after Cambridge Analytica and that he's blamed her for slow response. Question: Whose interest does it serve for this to come out now? Depends on yr Zuck theories... https://www.wsj.com/... Mike Dudas / @mdudas : Mark Zuckerberg is a coward. The guy was milking cows while his company burned, and now he's back with a fire, blaming everyone else at the company for the breakdowns? http://www.wsj.com/... http://twitter.com/... Paul Bedard / @secretsbedard : NYT: By the end of the 2016 cycle, Mr. Schumer had raised more money from Facebook employees than any other DC lawmaker. Senate Democrats have benefited from over $3 million in political contributions from Facebook's employees and founders over the years http://www.nytimes.com/... http://twitter.com/... See also Mediagazer
Context & Ripple Effects
Days after the New York Times' interviews with more than 50 people showed how Facebook stumbled through successive crises while Zuckerberg and Sandberg initially tried to obscure the missteps, the WSJ adds the internal power dimension: this spring Zuckerberg told Sandberg he was unhappy with the Cambridge Analytica fallout and blamed her and the communications team for it.
The June 'at war' speech to roughly 50 executives followed a pattern already visible in the coverage — after the Definers reporting, responsibility was pinned on the comms team, and Zuckerberg had consulted Bill Gates about placing policy and crisis communications under a president-level executive before backtracking when the role went unfilled and the top lawyer resigned.
First-order effects
- Sandberg's standing is directly shaken — she confided to friends she wondered whether she should be worried about her job, and many staff were upset by her comments shifting blame onto the communications team.
- The reorganizations Zuckerberg promised in the June speech are underway, with key departures including Facebook's top lawyer resigning amid the aborted plan to bundle comms, policy, and legal under one person.
Second-order effects
- Top executives are leaking regularly amid what the reporting describes as an internal meltdown, meaning Facebook's crisis management now competes with its own leadership's public airing of grievances.
- The failure to fill the bundled super-executive role forces Zuckerberg to govern through repeated reorgs rather than a single delegated authority, keeping decision rights concentrated at the top.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, Facebook moves from a dual-leader structure toward founder-centric control — a trajectory later confirmed by five board departures since 2019 as Zuckerberg consolidated decision-making.
- Crisis response becomes structurally centralized too: the short-lived War Room was disbanded within weeks in favor of a permanent Strategic Response Team, signaling that episodic crisis units give way to standing structures answering directly to Zuckerberg.
The trend: Facebook's crisis era is dissolving its co-leadership model, with Zuckerberg converting each scandal into a step toward consolidated personal control over policy, communications, and governance.