PRIVACY WARS

WhatsApp Founder Leaves Facebook After Clashes Over Data

Jan Koum is out after he sparred with Facebook over disputes on data use and encryption.

WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum is leaving the company after clashing with its parent company, Facebook, over its “attempts to use its personal data and weaken its encryption,” sources told The Washington Post. Koum also reportedly plans to step down from Facebook’s board of directors at an unknown date. He sold WhatsApp to Facebook in 2014 for $19 billion, making the messaging app the largest-ever acquisition made by the social network. In a Facebook post, Koum wrote that it was “time for [him] to move on,” and that he planned on enjoying activities after his departure like “collecting rare air-cooled Porsches, working on my cars and playing ultimate frisbee.” WhatsApp’s other co-founder, Brian Acton, left the company in November and participated in the #DeleteFacebook social media campaign in the wake of the social network’s Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandal.