Veteran tech journalist Kara Swisher has interviewed Mark Zuckerberg many times, notably once making the Facebook CEO sweat profusely onstage over a decade ago.
But with Facebook facing intense scrutiny from lawmakers, most recently for allegations by a whistleblower that it buried critical internal research, Zuckerberg and other Facebook executives are no longer speaking to Swisher.
“Mark Zuckerberg and I are finished; we broke up,” Swisher said with her signature sarcasm during Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit Tuesday in Washington, D.C. “It was an abusive relationship.”
Swisher said that Facebook “literally will not speak to me now,” and that she had “12 declines on everything” from the company in response to her queries. While Facebook may perceive an interview with her as potentially damaging, Swisher said the company could use the interview as a way to make a case to the public that it’s trying to improve itself.
“I would be like bear-hugging me at this point,” Swisher said, putting herself in the shoes of Facebook executives. “The damage that they perceive [as] damage, I don’t think it’s damage—it’s improvement.”
Speaking about her ability to land high-profile interviews, Swisher said, “Smart people like to talk about smart things,” and they enjoy “back and forth” thoughtful, direct exchanges.
“The only people that don’t like it fear direct questions,” Swisher said.
Swisher, who hosts a podcast for the New York Times and is a contributing opinion writer for the publication, also briefly discussed the time she and her colleague Walt Mossberg were able to get both Steve Jobs and Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates together for an interview.
“We invited Jobs first, and knew Gates couldn’t turn it down because he’s the more insecure of the pair,” Swisher recalled. “And then Jobs just was having fun tweaking Gates, and we knew it was something great.”
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