--- title: Mark Zuckerberg Responds After Elizabeth Warren Comments Leak description: Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg sought to rally employees amid company challenges, speaking candidly in two hours of leaked audio. canonical: https://time.com/5690241/you-go-to-the-mat-and-fight-facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerberg-address-elizabeth-warrens-break-up-calls-in-leaked-audio/ author: TIME article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-10-01T16:52:28.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T08:52:10.419Z article:section: Business og:title: Facebook's Zuckerberg Address Elizabeth Warren's Break-Up Calls in Leaked Audio og:description: Zuckerberg later called them an "unfiltered version" of his thoughts og:url: https://time.com/5690241/you-go-to-the-mat-and-fight-facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerberg-address-elizabeth-warrens-break-up-calls-in-leaked-audio/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte276640d3ebab81f/698a03a916d8845ec5c370ce/mark-zuckerberg.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Meets With Lawmakers On Capitol Hill og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Facebook's Zuckerberg Address Elizabeth Warren's Break-Up Calls in Leaked Audio twitter:description: Zuckerberg later called them an "unfiltered version" of his thoughts twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte276640d3ebab81f/698a03a916d8845ec5c370ce/mark-zuckerberg.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # 'You Go to the Mat and Fight.' Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Address Elizabeth Warren's Break-Up Calls in Leaked Audio ## Video: TIME Interviews: Elizabeth Warren [Watch (HLS stream): TIME Interviews: Elizabeth Warren](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/pdACM9QX.m3u8) (4:02)  _Published 2019-05-09. TIME's Senior Editor Haley Sweetland Edwards interviews Elizabeth Warren on her tax plan_ by [Molly Schuetz / Bloomberg](/author/bloomberg/) ## Molly Schuetz / Bloomberg Oct 1, 2019 4:52 PM CUT  Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg leaves a meeting with Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) in his office on Capitol Hill on September 19, 2019 in Washington, DC. Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg leaves a meeting with Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) in his office on Capitol Hill on September 19, 2019 in Washington, DC.Samuel Corum—Getty Images by [Molly Schuetz / Bloomberg](/author/bloomberg/) ## Molly Schuetz / Bloomberg Oct 1, 2019 4:52 PM CUT Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg sought to rally employees amid a litany of challenges the social media company has faced over the past year and a half, speaking candidly in two hours of leaked audio recordings published by [the Verge](https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/1/20756701/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-leak-audio-ftc-antitrust-elizabeth-warren-tiktok-comments "undefined"). While Zuckerberg often got laughs and tried to create a friendly banter with employees, the mood inside the company remains anxious, the Verge reported. Addressing questions raised at two open meetings with employees in July, Zuckerberg took on subjects from U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren’s plans to break up the company if elected president, to the rocky rollout of Libra and a new product to compete with TikTok. If Warren were to be elected, “then I would bet that we will have a legal challenge, and I would bet that we will win the legal challenge,” Zuckerberg said. “And does that still suck for us? Yeah. I mean, I don’t want to have a major lawsuit against our own government…. But look, at the end of the day, if someone’s going to try to threaten something that existential, you go to the mat and fight.” Warren responded to the story in her own tweet. “I’m not afraid to hold Big Tech companies like Facebook, Google, and Amazon accountable,” she tweeted. “It’s time to #BreakUpBigTech.” The meetings took place after Facebook was fined $5 billion by the Federal Trade Commission, an amount largely seen as a slap on the wrist for the company, as was the settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for $100 million. But the scandals over data privacy laid bare by the Cambridge Analytica affair, the near-constant critiques and demand for testimony at lengthy hearings in the U.S. and Europe, and antitrust investigations on multiple fronts seem to have taken a toll. Employees had questions for Zuckerberg himself, and worried about Facebook’s increasingly dim reputation among their peers, according to the Verge. Zuckerberg explained his decision on why he wouldn’t travel the world to testify in front of some foreign governments. “It just doesn’t make sense for me to go to hearings in every single country that wants to have me show up,” he said. When asked about competition with TikTok, a popular video and social media app owned by China’s ByteDance Inc., Zuckerberg said Facebook has an answer. “We have a product called Lasso that’s a standalone app that we’re working on, trying to get product-market fit in countries like Mexico,” Zuckerberg said. “We’re trying to first see if we can get it to work in countries where TikTok isn’t already big before we go and compete with TikTok in countries where they are big.” Zuckerberg responded to the leak in a Facebook post on Tuesday, calling them an “unfiltered version” of his thoughts on a range of issues. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5690241/you-go-to-the-mat-and-fight-facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerberg-address-elizabeth-warrens-break-up-calls-in-leaked-audio/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5690241/you-go-to-the-mat-and-fight-facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerberg-address-elizabeth-warrens-break-up-calls-in-leaked-audio/"},"headline":"'You Go to the Mat and Fight.' 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