Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Run Mark Run? Zuckerberg Insists He’s Not Trading Facebook for White House

He’s young, charismatic, liberal — and loaded.

Despite checking off some key boxes, Mark Zuckerberg insists he’s not plotting a run for the White House in 2020 — or the foreseeable future.

“I’m focused on building our community at Facebook and working on the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative,” Zuckerberg, 32, told Buzzfeed.

The Facebook CEO has sparked speculation by inserting a clause in his contract that allows him to take leave to fill a “political office.”

He also hired Obama campaign guru David Plouffe to a key lobbying post.

After Hillary Clinton’s devastating loss to Donald Trump, some Democrats think an outside-the-Beltway figure could turn their fortunes around.

But pals say taking a shot at becoming the most powerful man in the world doesn’t interest Zuckerberg, who’s busy with a young family.

Or actually he thinks he might already has that gig at the social media behemoth.

“There’s absolutely no truth to the idea that Mark is running for office and I’ve heard it directly from him,” the source said. “Here’s the thing: For Mark, Facebook is global community that already plays this huge part in the lives of billions of people around the world

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.