Meta's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg says: "My days of apologizing are over!"

For the first time in basketball history, Chase Center, AKA, the home of the Golden State Warriors wasn't filled with basketball fans. Rather, the stadium was filled with countless of tech fans who were queueing up to see Silicon Valley’s biggest ballers Mark Zuckerberg.

In conversation with the hosts of the Acquired podcast, Zuckerberg declared that his days of apologizing are officially over.

It seems that Zuckerberg is making a change to his public persona. Once known for constantly addressing Facebook's controversies, he's recently undergone something of a rebrand.

Now living in Hawaii, raising cattle, and sporting long curls and a gold chain, and commissions Roman-style statues of his wife. Onstage, he wore a custom t-shirt designed with fashion designer Mike Amiri, emblazoned with the phrase "learning through suffering" in Greek.

In his interview that day, Zuckerberg has signaled a broader change in his approach towards both business and politics. Reflecting on his career, he admitted his biggest mistake was a "political miscalculation" — assuming too much responsibility for issues outside of Facebook's control. Specifically, he said, he'd taken too much ownership for problems alleged out of Facebook's control.

Looking back on the thick and thin Facebook face in recent years, Zuckerberg commented that Facebook was accused of doing or responsible of many things that the company weren't responsible for. Zuckerberg also added that there are just people who are just looking for someone to blame, Facebook just became the scapegoat for these people.

Zuckerberg also commented on the controversies surrounding Facebook and the 2016 US election. Among many other things, a firm called Cambridge Analytica took Facebook users’ data and attempted to use it to influence voters to choose Trump. Foreign actors also used the platform in an attempt to influence the election and sow political division, culminating in years of bad press for the company and in Zuckerberg testifying before Congress.

In recent months, Zuckerberg has started to balance his involvement in political issues more carefully. In August, he sent a letter to House Republicans, effectively apologizing for Meta’s role in censoring COVID-19 misinformation, acknowledging how the company cower under government pressure. He lamented that something similar would happen again in the future, he would definitely push back. He also rolled back restrictions on Trump’s social media accounts, imposed after the January 6 insurrection.

Zuckerberg said that he's more excited about projects outside of social media these days, describing Meta as a "human connection" company at its core. His mission is for fans to remember Meta as more than just a social media platform, but a hub of innovation that produces innovative products like AR glasses, VR goggles, and open source AI efforts.

While the company is constantly trying to expand and branch itself outside of social media, it is undeniable that social media is still where billions of people convene everyday. As long as Meta is still in the social media business, content moderation issues will continue to arise, and the CEO will ultimately have to make a consequential decision.