Facebook Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has long been shown that Apple Inc. and its leader, Tim Cook, dominate the social media giant’s business too much. In 2018, his anger boiled over.
Facebook was embroiled in controversy over its data collection practices. Mr Cook rallied in a national television interview, saying his own company would never have been in a traffic jam. Zuckerberg responded that Mr. Cook’s comments were “extremely clear” and “not at all aligned with the truth.”
In private, Mr. Zuckerberg was even tougher. “We need to inflict pain,” he told his team, to treat the company so badly, according to people familiar with the exchange.
It was not the first time, nor the last, that Mr. Cook’s comments and actions left Mr. Zuckerberg boiling and sometimes plotting to get back to Apple. The escalation of grievances erupted late last month in a rare public bond between the two tech giants that exposed the slow-fire animosity between its leaders, who exchanged jabs about privacy, tracking tools applications and ultimately their grieving views on the future of the internet.
Apple has positioned itself as a protector of digital privacy, maintaining a greater good, although it has often criticized Facebook’s business model, without naming the company. All of this is done on Facebook, which believes Apple is pushing the boundaries in a way that threatens Facebook’s existence, and is hypocritical, even doing extensive business in China, where privacy is scarce. An attempt in 2017 to address tensions through a face-to-face meeting between the two CEOs resulted in a tense confrontation.