America Hates Mark Zuckerberg

No one likes a person with arbitrary power over their daily lives. According to a new poll from Pew Research, an overwhelming majority of Americans of both major political parties hate Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Shadow President and Tesla CEO Elon Musk is more polarizing. People don’t like him, but the hate falls along party lines.

To do the research, Pew surveyed more than 5,000 Americans of varying ages who identify with various political parties. “Two-thirds of Americans have an unfavorable view of Zuckerberg. This includes 26% who are very unfavorable toward him. Another quarter view him favorably, including just 2% who see him very favorably,” Pew said in its poll.

Zuckerberg has spent a lot of the last few years attempting to get people to like him. Billions of people use Facebook. It’s changed the way we all live. People use it to connect with friends, do business, and interact with their community. Zuckerberg made himself the face of the brand. When you think of Facebook, you think of its founder and CEO.

That cuts both ways. We’re 15 years out from The Social Network, an Oscar-winning movie that questions Facebook’s place in our lives and casts Zuckerberg as a villain. Many people who’ve remained on the platform have had the experience of being “Zucked,” banned from posting with no explanation as to why.

People on the right and left of the political spectrum in the U.S. feel like Facebook has arbitrary control over what they post. Not getting traction on Facebook has long been a conservative grievance and Meta’s CEO has been called to task in front of Congress more than once over how he runs the company. Democrats blamed him for the election of Donald Trump in 2016. Conservatives blamed him for censoring their posts.

His appearances in Congress throughout the first Trump Presidency made him appear alien and strange. His wide eyes and caesar haircut helped spread the conspiracy that he was a reptilian. In 2016 he looked dead at a camera, licked his lips, and said “I am not a lizard.”

Then came the great re-branding. He grew his hair shaggy, started dressing like a gym bro, and went all in on fitness culture. He got tanned and posted videos of himself surfing in a suit while drinking a beer and waving the American flag on the Fourth of July. If this was meant to make America forget that he had once appeared on a similar surfboard in a hoodie, his face lathered in white sunscreen while he looked aghast, it did not.

America knows who Zuckerberg is. Most of them live on Facebook and they hate it. They hate it when posts vanish. They hate it when they’re banned for posting for no reason. They hate that their perceived political enemies have more clout on the site than them. They hate every AI-generated image they see of limbless soldiers begging for change on the street. They hate Mark Zuckerberg. “Majorities in both parties have an unfavorable view of Zuckerberg, though Democrats are more likely than Republicans to see him negatively,” Pew said.

Almost everyone Pew spoke with knew about Zuckerberg and Musk, and most of them weren’t happy about the power they have over their lives. “Few Americans are unfamiliar with either of these tech leaders. Fewer than one-in-ten say they’ve never heard of Musk (3%) or Zuckerberg (6%),” Pew said. “Previous Center surveys have found that Americans largely feel that social media companies have too much power in American politics.”

Of the two, Musk is wielding much more power. He’s richer and he’s a heartbeat away from the Presidency. As the inciter of DOGE he’s taking a chainsaw to America’s backend. Pew found that, for the moment, Republicans largely like this, but most Americans don’t.

“Just over half of U.S. adults (54%) say they have an unfavorable view of Musk, including 36% who have a very unfavorable opinion of him,” Pew said. “About four-in-ten (42%) express a favorable view, including 11% who are very favorable.”

And those affiliations break down along tribal political lines. “73% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents–including 84% of conservative Republicans–hold a favorable view,” Pew said. “Far more Democrats than Republicans have an unfavorable view of Musk (85% vs. 24%).”

Pew conducted the poll at the end of January so it’s possible opinions will shift. I’d lay good money that the perception of Musk will shift quite a bit over the coming year among all Americans regardless of their politics.

But no matter what happens, I bet everyone will keep hating Mark Zuckerberg.