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WhatsApp founder plans to leave after broad clashes with parent Facebook

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April 30, 2018 at 4:49 p.m. EDT
Co-founders of WhatsApp, a messaging service whose logo is shown above, had clashed with owner Facebook over data privacy and other issues. (Dado Ruvic/Reuters)

SAN FRANCISCO — The billionaire chief executive of WhatsApp, Jan Koum, is planning to leave the company after clashing with its parent, Facebook, over the popular messaging service’s strategy and Facebook’s attempts to use its personal data and weaken its encryption, according to people familiar with internal discussions.

Koum, who sold WhatsApp to Facebook for more than $19 billion in 2014, also plans to step down from Facebook’s board of directors, according to these people. The date of his departure isn’t known.