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Zuckerberg on Tim Cook's dig: 'Not at all aligned with the truth'

In an interview with Vox's Ezra Klein, the Facebook CEO takes issue with Cook's comments about monetizing user data.

Headshot of Dan Ackerman
Headshot of Dan Ackerman
Dan Ackerman Editorial Director / Computers and Gaming
Dan Ackerman leads CNET's coverage of computers and gaming hardware. A New York native and former radio DJ, he's also a regular TV talking head and the author of "The Tetris Effect" (Hachette/PublicAffairs), a non-fiction gaming and business history book that has earned rave reviews from the New York Times, Fortune, LA Review of Books, and many other publications. "Upends the standard Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs/Mark Zuckerberg technology-creation myth... the story shines." -- The New York Times
Expertise I've been testing and reviewing computer and gaming hardware for over 20 years, covering every console launch since the Dreamcast and every MacBook...ever. Credentials
  • Author of the award-winning, NY Times-reviewed nonfiction book The Tetris Effect; Longtime consumer technology expert for CBS Mornings
Dan Ackerman
James Martin/CNET

Apple CEO Tim Cook maybe be unfriending Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg after he hears some of the quotes from a new interview Zuckerberg did with Vox.com editor at large Ezra Klein. In the just-published interview, Zuckerberg responds strongly to Cook's criticisms of Facebook's business model, which in turn come from an upcoming MSNBC interview, which is set to air on April 6. Got all that?

In that MSNBC interview, conducted by Kara Swisher and Chris Hayes, Cook takes a swipe at Facebook's model of giving its service away for free, but selling user data. He says: "We could make a ton of money if we monetized our customers. If our customers were our product. We've elected not to do that."

In response to that, Zuckerberg tells Klein in the just-published interview: 

"I find that argument, that if you're not paying that somehow we can't care about you, to be extremely glib. And not at all aligned with the truth." 

He continues: 

"I think it's important that we don't all get Stockholm Syndrome and let the companies that work hard to charge you more convince you that they actually care more about you. Because that sounds ridiculous to me."

The full transcript of the interview can be found here, and the audio is available on Klein's podcast, The Ezra Klein Show.Â