Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told senators more than a dozen times that his team would need to get back to them to respond to their questions on Tuesday.
During a five-hour hearing on Capitol Hill, Zuckerberg said “I’ll have my team follow up with you,” or some variant of that, 15 times, according to C-SPAN’s transcript.
At one point, Zuckerberg was even called out for his well-worn reply, when he said his team will supply an answer in the future regarding if Facebook will return to D.C. and be an advocate for the Honest Ads Act, legislation that regulates political ads on social media platforms.
[9 key moments from Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony on Capitol Hill]
Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., pressed him on the issue. After Zuckerberg said Facebook supports it, Udall asked if he would return to be a “strong advocate” to see that the bill is passed.
“Our team is certainly going to work on this,” Zuckerberg said.
To which Udall replied: “I’m talking about you.”
“Well, senator, I try not to come to D.C.,” Zuckerberg said in response.
The tech leader was being grilled by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee and Commerce Committee after he was called to Capitol Hill this week to testify about the user-data controversy stemming from the revelation that Cambridge Analytica improperly obtained information from tens of millions of Facebook users.
Facebook is also still facing pressure due to the revelation that Russian entities were buying ads to influence the 2016 presidential election.
Zuckerberg is scheduled to testify again Wednesday before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce at 10 a.m.
