Zuckerberg to return to Capitol Hill this month

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will return to Capitol Hill this month to testify before the House Financial Services Committee.

Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) announced Wednesday that Zuckerberg will be the sole witness at an Oct. 23 hearing titled “An Examination of Facebook and Its Impact on the Financial Services and Housing Sectors.”

{mosads}“Mark looks forward to testifying before the House Financial Services Committee and responding to lawmakers’ questions,” a Facebook spokesperson told The Hill in a statement.

Waters’s committee has pressed Zuckerberg to testify for months about his company’s plans to launch a new digital currency this year.

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg had previously offered to testify before the committee on Oct. 29, but lawmakers said that her appearance would not be confirmed without an agreement from Zuckerberg to testify, The Hill previously reported.

Zuckerberg’s scheduled appearance comes amid rising scrutiny over Libra, Facebook’s digital currency project.

The announcement of a cryptocurrency from one of the world’s largest social media platforms sent shockwaves throughout the global financial system, leaving regulators scrambling.

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have raised concerns that the Switzerland-based project could be abused for terrorist financing and money laundering. 

Top Libra executive David Marcus testified before Congress in July.

Zuckerberg was last on Capitol Hill last month, when he held a series of closed-door meetings with lawmakers on a range of topics including Libra and anti-trust concerns.

His testimony later this month will mark the first time he comes before Congress publicly since hearings in 2018 that followed the Cambridge Analytica scandal.