Facebook CEO threatened to pull UK investment during meeting with Matt Hancock: Report

During a meeting with Britain's then-Secretary of State for Digital Matt Hancock, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly threatened to pull investment from the United Kingdom. According to Sky News, in the meeting which took place between Hancock and Zuckerberg in 2018, Facebook's founder threatened the UK minister to pull investment out of the country and look for other options in the European region. 

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According to the report, the revelation has been made by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, who has obtained a document from the meeting. The report says that Zuckerberg described the British government of being anti-tech and talked about investing in another country in the European region as a replacement for the UK. As per the report, the name of the second country was edited in the note. 

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'Brief lesson' by Hancock

The report also mentioned how Hancock gave a "brief lesson" to Zuckerberg after the tech billionaire refused to attend a parliamentary hearing, without disclosing the actual content of the lesson. The report suggested that Zuckerberg was worried about the tone of the regulation proposed by the British government. The report further noted that Hancock told the Facebook CEO that the tone could shift from threatening regulation to being collaborative innovative-friendly legislation. 

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The United Kingdom is Facebook's second-largest engineering hub after the United States and the company claimed it created 1,000 new jobs in the country in 2020 alone. Facebook on Tuesday, December 1 announced that it will start new investments in the United Kingdom, where it will pay publishers for content with the launch of Facebook News in January 2021. The UK will become the second country to have that feature after it was launched in the US earlier this year. 

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