The ex-campaign managers for President Barack Obama and former President George W. Bush will work for Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's charity, signaling The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative's desire to establish deeper ties with Washington.
According to The New York Times, the charity led by Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan hired Obama's 2008 campaign manager and current Uber board member David Plouffe to work as president of policy and advocacy. Also joining the organization is Kenneth Mehlman as head of a public policy advisory board. Mehlman served as Bush's 2004 campaign manager.
Zuckerberg and Chan formed their charity in December 2015 after they pledged to give away 99 percent of their Facebook shares — valued at $45 billion at the time.
"You can make change, but in order for it to be sustainable, you need to build a movement to support it," Zuckerberg told the Times. "No amount of private research or philanthropy is going to shift that. At the end of the day, the govern-ment has far more resources than any individual organization does."
The charity has pledged to help cure diseases and change how children are taught in schools.
Zuckerberg said last month Facebook — which he and four other Harvard University students created in a dorm room — is a form of a media company. The comment came amid talk that fake news stories appearing on the social media network played a role in influencing voters' opinions leading up to November's elections.
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