Tuesday 14 June 2022 11:40 PM What triggered the exit of Facebook's feminist queen? TOM LEONARD examines ... trends now
When Sheryl Sandberg was at the height of her power as Mark Zuckerberg's number two at Facebook, she reportedly hired a PR company who charged $30,000 a month to burnish her public image.
But, following her departure from the social media giant last week after 14 years, insisting she needed to spend more time with her family and work on various philanthropic enterprises, she is in need of their services more than ever.
For Miss Sandberg — whose role as the public face of the social media giant has now been filled by the company's president of global affairs, the former Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg — had just a day to bask in progressive virtuousness before it emerged there might be other reasons why she'd left the controversial technology company.
Miss Sandberg (pictured last July with Mark Zuckerberg) became Facebook's valuable face
It turns out that Silicon Valley's feminist queen, who claimed she was leaving principally to help her fellow women fight attempts by a conservative-dominated U.S. Supreme Court to challenge legal abortion in America, was reportedly under investigation by her ex-employer over her use of company resources.
Within 24 hours of Miss Sandberg's rather pious announcement, the Wall Street Journal sensationally reported that she has been the subject of a probe by Facebook lawyers for months over her use of company staff and resources on her personal projects.
And we're not talking about PAs dashing out to collect her dry cleaning or pick up an oat milk latte, but people said to be working on her philanthropic foundation, promoting her next book, and allegedly organising her forthcoming wedding to Tom Bernthal, the chief executive of a marketing consultancy.
Both Facebook and Sandberg have denied that the internal investigation into her behaviour has anything to do with her decision to leave Facebook — she will be staying on as a member of the board of its parent company Meta Platforms — and the Journal conceded that senior Facebook executives often use company resources to get things done in areas of their private lives.
However, the allegations threaten to damage the legacy of a billionaire businesswoman who had such a central role in turning Facebook into a social media phenomenon, albeit one with a reputation for not doing enough to root out hate speech and 'fake news'.
Since the former management consultant and Google advertising expert joined the company in 2008 — four years after its founding — to be 'the adult in the room' and help it monetise its vast and growing base of users, its annual revenue has ballooned from $200 million to $117 billion last year.
Sandberg is accused of using company resources to plan her upcoming wedding to marketing executive Tom Bernthal (also pictured). She denies it had anything to do with her exit
And her rewards have been correspondingly vast. In 2020, Miss Sandberg took home just over $875,000 in basic pay, and a bonus of more than $900,000, as well as $19.7 million in shares. Her total net worth is put at $1.6 billion.
The Journal reported that her departure was the 'culmination of a years-long process in which one of the world's most powerful executives became increasingly burned out and disconnected' from Facebook.
Ms Sandberg (pictured at an abortions protest in Washington, DC) claimed to be leaving the company to focus on activism
But the way Sandberg pitches it, she was giving it all up for the sake of womankind.
'This is a really important moment for women,' she gushed about the Supreme Court's challenge to the historic Roe v Wade ruling that paved the way for legal abortion in the US. 'This is a really important moment for me to be able to do more with my philanthropy, with my foundation.'
She also said that after struggling to juggle work and home life, she wanted to spend more time with her family.
Miss Sandberg, whose first marriage ended in divorce after a year, had two children with her second husband, Dave Goldberg, who died in 2015 after an accident at a holiday villa in Mexico.
Then, in 2019, her former brother-in-law Rob set her up with Tom Bernthal. The couple became engaged in February 2020, Bernthal proposing with a ring decorated with five tiny hidden diamonds, representing their five children (Bernthal has three with his ex-wife).
In an intimate letter to Bernthal last year, published in Good Housekeeping, Sandberg said she 'could barely imagine dating again, much less getting married' after losing Goldberg. But she changed her mind upon meeting Bernthal.
The wedding is likely to include famous friends such as businesswoman Arianna Huffington, broadcaster Katie Couric and actress Kate Bosworth.
Sandberg (pictured in Paris, 2017) will remain on the board of parent company Meta Platforms
But Sandberg's domestic bliss may well be marred by claims that were reported earlier this year.
The Wall Street Journal reported that there had been 'fresh irritation' at the top of Facebook over the newspaper's allegations that Sandberg had 'pressured' the Daily Mail's online operation to scrap an article about a temporary restraining order taken out against Miss Sandberg's then boyfriend, computer games tycoon Bobby Kotick, chief executive of Activision Blizzard, by an old flame.
The woman later retracted some of the allegations and Meta denied that any threat against the website had ever been made.
Today, Meta has a market capitalisation of $455billion but its success has come at a price —and one
