Mark Zuckerberg lost $6 billion and his head of security in one day

Facebook’s security chief Alex Stamos is planning on leaving the company, according to the New York Times. Stamos–one of the more public-facing employees at the company–is parting ways over disagreements with how the company has handled its problem with misinformation.
Stamos—who led the team that studied “information operations” on Facebook and Instagram in the wake of the 2016 U.S. election—is known as a prolific tweeter, and has long defended Facebook’s actions when it came to security and political interference. After his day-to-day responsibilities were reassigned to others in December, he announced his intentions to leave, but was asked to remain on through August, according to today’s Times report. Stamos has been helping his team transition to Facebook’s product and infrastructure divisions; the security veteran once oversaw over 120, but now reportedly only three people answer to him.

In a tweet this evening, Stamos appeared to dispute the Times story. “Despite the rumors, I’m still fully engaged with my work at Facebook. It’s true that my role did change. I’m currently spending more time exploring emerging security risks and working on election security.” He did not address his future plans.

Facebook has come under new fire over revelations that data firm Cambridge Analytica was able to access millions of users’ personal data and use it for political microtargeting. When this news broke, Stamos took to Twitter to defend and contextualize Facebook’s actions, arguing that the incident did not amount to a “data breach.”