Will Mark Zuckerberg Be Our Next President?

During this crazy and bizarre week—one in which we learned that Donald Trump was briefed by intelligence chiefs that the Russian government had kompromat on him (and then later what said kompromat might comprise)—an interesting fantasy has been circulating around Silicon Valley. On the face of it, the notion may seem as fantastical as a Trump presidency once seemed before he descended that golden staircase in Trump Tower some 18 months ago. Increasingly, a number of influential people in Silicon Valley seem to think that Mark Zuckerberg will likely run for president of the United States one day. And some people, including myself, believe that he could indeed win. “He wants to be emperor” is a phrase that has become common among people who have known him over the years.

We’ll get to my theory on what that means a little later. First, let’s zip through the myriad indications that he might choose to throw his hoodie into the ring. Last year’s Facebook proxy statement articulated that Zuckerberg can run for office and still maintain control of his company. (To this end, Trump’s controversial precedent may facilitate any thorny political complications regarding the matter.) Then, over the holidays, Zuckerberg responded to a question about being an atheist, a belief he once professed, with a decidedly more politically circumspect answer: “I was raised Jewish and then I went through a period where I questioned things, but now I believe religion is very important.” (No one likes a president who doesn’t believe in some sort of God.) More recently, President Obama’s former campaign manager, David Plouffe, joined the philanthropic Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, to lead policy and advocacy. Other politicians from both parties have also joined the organization. And then there was the most obvious intimation: earlier this year, Zuckerberg, who has a habit of posting his annual New Year’s resolution on his Facebook page, declared that after conquering the previous challenges of learning Mandarin, and building an artificial-intelligence butler for his home, this year he was going to meet “people in every state in the US.” He noted that he’s “spent significant time in many states already, so I’ll need to travel to about 30 states this year to complete this challenge.” I wonder how many of those states are swing states?

“He’s been incredibly careful about cultivating a specific type of persona over the past few years.”

Of course, these are just a series of hints. In a funny way, and as insane as it sounds to say out loud, Zuckerberg is one of the few people for whom becoming president of the United States might be a step down. As the chief of Facebook, he is already the true leader of the free world. Zuckerberg commands a company that touches a quarter of the Earth’s population, some 1.8 billion monthly active users. There is no one alive who can affect more people with the touch of a button. He has more power and influence than most world leaders and, as is evident with the real fake-news problem (not the fake fake-news issue that Republicans have adopted as a deflection), Facebook can surely sway public opinion in incomparable ways.

 If he does want the job, Zuckerberg definitely has the personality for it. When Facebook went public in 2012, I co-authored a profile of the young C.E.O. During the reporting, I heard from several friends about his penchant for playing world-conquering board and video games. Early childhood pals told me that one of Zuckerberg’s favorite video games as a boy was Civilization, the game in which you have to “build an empire to stand the test of time.” Others have told me that, to this day, Zuckerberg loves to play Risk, a strategy board game where you have to essentially take over the world. Believe it or not, he ended up applying some of these theories while forging and managing the extraordinary growth of Facebook, organizing his product teams in similar ways to his battalions in the board games. (According to someone close to him, these days Zuckerberg loves Game of Thrones and enjoys cooking a meat-laden “Dothraki Feast” while watching Westeros fall in and out of anarchy.)

 Zuckerberg’s mastery of the actual boardroom is astounding, too. Last year, he changed Facebook’s stock voting rights in a way that gives him complete control of the company without having to own the majority of its shares. He also commands the social network from the very top to the very bottom: while Facebook has 15,724 employees, when was the last time that anything leaked? All of this, coupled with the proxy statement allowing him to run for office, suggests that Zuckerberg might get bored playing Civilization and might want to try his hand at the real thing. “Zuck has the kind of personality that, no matter what he decides to do, he’s going to do it better than anyone else on the planet,” someone close to him said to me a couple of years ago. “If Zuck was running a nonprofit, it would be the world’s biggest most successful nonprofit that would have distributed the most money in history to people around the world. It just so happens that he started his career building Facebook. Hence, the fact that it’s the biggest social network on the planet.”

The person also noted that Facebook would not be Zuckerberg’s only contribution to society. “He has much bigger plans,” the person said.

So let’s just say Zuckerberg decides to run. If you’re Elizabeth Warren, Paul Ryan, or Kanye West (who also aspires to be president—God help us all) what’s your attack on Zuckerberg? Privacy. Over the years, one of Zuckerberg’s biggest blunders has been the lack of respect for people’s privacy on Facebook. In the early days of the social network, he pillaged, sneered, and ignored people’s concerns about their privacy. Sure, it worked out well for the company and created entirely new societal norms for what it meant to be open, but it’s something that is going to follow him wherever he goes. And, given Zuckerberg’s unsuccessful bid to get Facebook into China, you can be sure politicians would attempt to paint him as someone just trying to use public office to grow his business. (Though, that didn’t seem to hurt you-know-who.)

When I’ve asked people in Silicon Valley if a Zuckerberg bid is potentially real, the consensus seems to be: absolutely. “He’s been incredibly careful about cultivating a specific type of persona over the past few years,” one person said. And he’s managed to set himself apart from other tech titans. (For example, while Bezos, Musk, Cook, and others made a pilgrimage to Trump’s table last month, Zuckerberg sent his second in command, Sheryl Sandberg.) If you ask me, Zuckerberg’s biggest problem is that he’s not the most sociable. He sticks to himself and his company, doesn’t entertain people outside his very tight circle of friends and associates, and appears to be more socially awkward than Howard Hughes. But, he also clearly isn’t driven by money—he’s the sixth-richest person in the world and has vowed to donate most of his wealth. He wants something bigger. Something that gives him more impact and influence on the planet.

So what about that “He wants to be emperor” statement? I remember once hearing a story about how Zuckerberg used to motivate people when he was a young C.E.O. As a child, he was enamored with literature, and while most people just read books, Zuckerberg instead decided to memorize them. He did this with Homer’s Iliad, which tells the story of the battle between the ancient kingdoms of Troy and Sparta. As The Wall Street Journal reported in 2010, at a staff meeting, “Zuckerberg quoted from the movie Troy before hundreds of employees crammed into the steamy basement of a Sheraton hotel in Palo Alto. He recounted the scene where a messenger tells Achilles how scared he would be to confront the giant Thessalonian, whom Achilles was preparing to battle.” To this, Zuckerberg shouted to his underlings: “That’s why no one will remember your name!” He’s echoed that statement over the years, saying that when new hires ask why they should join Facebook, “Tell them: because people will remember your name.” Zuckerberg wants his name to be remembered, too. And maybe being C.E.O. of the biggest social network in the world isn’t a big enough remembrance.

If Zuckerberg does decide to run for office (and the nothing-but-gossip theory I’ve heard floating around is that it would be 2024, not 2020, which makes complete sense given that he’s still only 32 years old), I personally think he’d be an astounding president. Besides his experience contending with competition trying to destroy him (Google, Snapchat, etc.), and the fact that he has grown Facebook into a $370 billion colossus, it also appears Zuckerberg has been training for the POTUS job for the past decade. Unlike Trump, who has the diplomacy of a Twitter troll, Zuckerberg has become adept at statesmanship over the years meeting with world leaders—including presidents, prime ministers, and notable politicians—since he was in his mid-20s. He’s hosted town halls with President Obama, and backed immigration bills. He knows where to focus his energies from a global perspective. Zuckerberg isn’t concerned with Russia (which, let’s be frank, poses no economic threat to the United States), but he is very concerned with China (which, let’s be frank, sure as hell does).

“He wants to be emperor.”

Then there’s the biggest issue I think America will face over the next 5 to 20 years: automation and artificial intelligence. Trump, who has continually promised to revive the low-skilled segments of the manufacturing business, is utterly oblivious to the reality that robots, driverless cars, and algorithms are going to vanquish millions of jobs in the coming years. It will likely be tens of millions of jobs in the coming decades.

America faces countless challenges on numerous fronts, but the rise of automation may indeed be the biggest, as it is likely to seep into every part of our lives—disrupting the job market, affecting how we interact, and overturning the very time-tested notion of the American dream. One of the chief requirements of our government is that it learns to adapt to these changes and create safety nets for the people who are most vulnerable. Yet Trump seems blissfully impervious to the crisis. I don’t even think Trump has any idea what artificial intelligence is. He bragged during the election that he doesn’t use a computer. In a future where government infrastructure is vulnerable to hackers, where warfare won’t be fought between humans, but rather between software, isn’t it time for a president who knows a thing or two about technology?

During the election, Trump tried to present himself as the embodiment of a tough guy, who didn’t take anyone’s crap. But the way of the world is changing—and it’s changing fast—there may be no one tougher than a billionaire nerd who likes playing Risk. Given the choice between Kanye West and Zuckerberg, I know who I’d support.

by :Nick Bilton

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