In the morning of May 6, Beijing time, it was reported that the former CFO of WhatsApp said he regretted selling the company to Facebook that year. For years, early executives of WhatsApp have been expressing their dissatisfaction with Facebook's actions.
Neeraj Arora, former chief financial officer of WhatsApp, joined the company in 2011. He said on twitter that with his participation, Facebook completed negotiations with WhatsApp, which was acquired by Facebook for $22 billion, and now he regrets it.
Arora said the acquisition initially looked like a partnership. Facebook promises that WhatsApp leadership will maintain "complete independence of product decision-making", and also promises that Facebook will never integrate advertising and cross platform tracking on WhatsApp, and will not mine user data.
"Facebook and its management agreed to these terms. At that time, we thought we had the same sense of mission," Arora said in a tweet
However, many former WhatsApp executives have stressed that Facebook has not kept its promise.
Shortly after leaving office in 2018, WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton said that Facebook had considered introducing advertising for WhatsApp, but had not yet implemented it. Acton launched a famous twitter campaign to #delete Facebook after Facebook's handling of user data was exposed in the Cambridge analytics scandal. Acton tweeted in 2018: "it's time." And tagged the tweet with #deletefacebook.
Arora tweeted: "WhatsApp is Facebook's second-largest platform, even bigger than instagram or Facebook messenger. We put a lot of effort into this product, and I'm not the only one who regrets that WhatsApp was acquired by Facebook."
Arora said that at first, no one knew that Facebook would become a 'monster' that devoured user data and spit out dirty money. "