[imagesource: Daniel Acker / Bloomberg via Getty Images]

When it rains, it pours.

Facebook is currently in the midst of what has been dubbed its gravest crisis since the Cambridge Analytica scandal, with the so-called ‘Facebook Papers’ revealing a lengthy list of damning revelations.

Perhaps Zuck can console himself with the fact that he’s estimated to be worth around $113 billion.

Still, it’s the sort of crisis that a simple name change isn’t going to fix, and now Zuckerberg is being targeted in his personal capacity.

Two former household employees are suing the Facebook CEO and his wife, Priscilla Chan, over allegations of harassment and discrimination in the family office.

Zuckerberg’s wife, Priscilla Chan, is also named in the lawsuits, with staff alleging they “were targeted with racist and homophobic abuse by a key aide to the chief executive, as well as being refused legally required work breaks”.

Here’s The Telegraph:

At the heart of both suits filed in San Francisco are allegations of inappropriate behaviour against Liam Booth, the head of Mr Zuckerberg’s personal security, who left his role in 2019 after the allegations were first made public.

Mr Booth is alleged to have made comments to a black employee of the household, Mia King, about her gender and race, including calling her “ghetto” and saying that she had only been hired because of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’s diversity pledge.

He is accused of complaining to her that Meghan Markle, who is half-black, “polluted the royal bloodline,” according to her suit. He is also accused of making racist comments about Ms Chan.

It’s alleged that Booth once blamed Chan for her involvement in a car accident, according to the lawsuit filed by Mia King, “while pulling back his eyelids and commenting that Asian women are notoriously bad drivers”.

The second lawsuit, filed anonymously in September by a former employee under the name John Doe, alleges that Booth groped the man’s buttocks and imitated “lewd sex acts” in front of him while other employees looked on.

Both of the plaintiffs say they were not given legally required work breaks, and also were not paid for overtime hours.

King alleges that when she raised the issue of Booth’s behaviour, she was told that “men are in power” at the office, and had her contract terminated shortly after in February 2019.

A spokesperson for Zuckerberg and Chan’s family office responded, reports The New York Post:

“In this case, almost all of the allegations in these complaints were first raised through counsel, after both employees had left the company, and in connection with significant monetary demands,” Ben LaBolt said in an email.

“Nevertheless, when their lawyers shared these concerns, both our HR Department and outside counsel conducted separate multi-week investigations into the allegations, including by conducting numerous interviews of their colleagues and reviewing other relevant documents and information,” he added.

“Following these thorough investigations, these allegations simply could not be substantiated. We firmly believe that these employees were treated fairly and respectfully and the family office is confident that it will defeat these claims.”

I guess this is a case of ‘see you in court’ unless a settlement is reached before that is necessary.

Taking on the financial and legal might of Zuckerberg, Chan, and Facebook must be a pretty daunting task.

[sources:telegraph&nypost]