‘Infuriated’ Mark Zuckerberg Told Facebook Staff to Use Android After Apple CEO’s Diss (Report)

Facebook CEO “ordered” his management team to boycott iPhones, The New York Times reports

Congress Mark Zuckerberg
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Don’t expect Mark Zuckerberg to buy his friends and family new iPhones this holiday season.

Apple CEO Tim Cook’s thinly veiled criticism of the social network earlier this year “infuriated” the Facebook chief, according to a comprehensive report from The New York Times on Wednesday. Zuckerberg “ordered his management team to use only Android phones, since the operating system has far more users than Apple’s,” according to insiders who spoke with the Times.

Facebook did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.

The tech beef started simmering earlier this year, after Facebook was hit by the Cambridge Analytica data leak, when up to 87 million users had their profiles unknowingly accessed by the political firm. Cook, when asked by CNBC what advice he’d give to Zuckerberg on handling the crisis, shot back “I would’t be in this situation.” Cook then patted Apple on the back, saying, “We’re not going to traffic in your personal life,” before adding “privacy to us is a human right. It’s a civil liberty.”

Publicly, Zuckerberg fired back at Cook in early April, calling his comments “glib.” Soon after, NTK Network, a site connected to a Republican opposition research firm working for Facebook, published several stories critical of Apple, according to the Times. One story blasted Cook for being “hypocritical,” the Times reported, since Apple also collects data from its users.

Definers, the right-wing research firm contracted to Facebook, also went after financier George Soros, according to the Times’ report published Wednesday. Soros, a longtime target of conservatives and anti-Semites for his contributions to left-wing causes, had criticized Facebook earlier in the year as a “menace” with “neither the will nor the inclination to protect society against the consequences of their actions” at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland. Facebook also didn’t respond to TheWrap’s request for comment on the company’s alleged fixation on Soros.

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