Biden will be the next president

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted to employees Thursday that Joe Biden would be the next president of the United States, a company spokesperson confirmed to CNBC.

“I think the election result is now clear and Joe Biden will be our next president,” Zuckerberg said at a company-wide meeting, according to BuzzFeed News. “It is important that people have confidence that the election was fundamentally fair, and that goes for the tens of millions of people who voted for Trump.”

Zuckerberg’s comments are his first acknowledgment of the new Biden administration, even as President Trump has claimed, without presenting any evidence, that there was widespread voter fraud.

The comments come as Facebook has become the object of criticism from several Biden campaign staff who complained about Facebook’s handling of election ads and the impact of disinformation on democracy.

Despite these criticisms, Facebook employees told CNBC that sentiment within the company was mostly relieved when the company passed the 2020 U.S. election without any allegations of foreign interference or rampant disinformation. While in 2016 Facebook was blamed for the election results, this time around Facebook provided users with authoritative information about the US election, posting user notifications at the top of their Facebook apps and Instagram.

In his comments to employees, Zuckerberg also noted that former Trump adviser Steve Bannon did not violate Facebook policies enough to be suspended by the company, according to a Reuters report Thursday. Facebook also confirmed the comments.

Bannon recently hinted that FBI Director Christopher Wray and senior government infectious disease expert Dr.Anthony Fauci should be beheaded and put on spikes outside the White House.

Facebook, however, took down a network of Bannon-linked pages on Monday for using tricks to increase their reach.