Instant Alert: The billionaire co-creator of WhatsApp is leaving Facebook to collect cars and play ultimate frisbee

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The billionaire co-creator of WhatsApp is leaving Facebook to collect cars and play ultimate frisbee

by Matt Weinberger on Apr 30, 2018, 5:22 PM

Jan Koum is leaving Facebook, he confirms in a post.
Koum became a billionaire when he and cofounder Brian Acton sold WhatsApp to Facebook for $19 billion in 2014.
The Washington Post reports that Facebook has been pushing to weaken WhatsApp encryption and collect users' personal information — moves that caused friction between Koum and other executives, according to the Post.

WhatsApp cofounder Jan Koum is leaving Facebook, he said in a post to his personal account on Monday.

"I'm taking some time off to do things I enjoy outside of technology, such as collecting rare air-cooled Porsches, working on my cars and playing ultimate frisbee," writes Koum.

Koum became a billionaire when he and WhatsApp cofounder Brian Acton sold the popular messaging app to Facebook in 2014. Acton left Facebook in 2017, and has since become a champion for encrypted messaging app Signal, going so far as to promote the #DeleteFacebook movement.

The reason for his departure, per a Washington Post report: Facebook executives wanted to weaken the encryption of messages on WhatsApp, and is also said to have wanted to begin collecting its users' information.

Koum has remained in charge of WhatsApp following the acquisition, and also has a seat on the Facebook board of directors — a seat he would give up on his departure from the company, according to the Washington Post report. Facebook declined to comment on whether Koum would retain his board seat.

The company's proxy statement, filed April 13, says that Koum will stand for re-election to the board during this year's annual shareholder meeting on May 31.

Koum has been pushing back on Facebook's efforts to weaken WhatsApp privacy, reportedly, but the fight only intensified in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which as many as 87 million users had their personal information improperly used for ad targeting.

Read the full Washington Post report here.