Sheryl Sandberg, the ex-Facebook COO, is said to have splurged on $13,000 (about Rs 11.3 lakh) worth of lingerie for herself and her 26-year-old female assistant during a trip to Europe, based on allegations presented in a newly published memoir.
In her book Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism, ex-Facebook employee Sarah Wynn-Williams claims Sandberg also asked her assistant to "come to bed" during a return flight on a private plane.
Wynn-Williams, a former Facebook employee for six years who quit in 2017, recounts how Sandberg and her assistant purportedly took turns resting their heads on one another's laps and touching each other's hair while traveling through Europe on a long road trip.
In a New York Times book review, it is reported that Sandberg directed Wynn-Williams to buy lingerie for herself and her assistant, with the cost being $13,000. The review also states that Sandberg became visibly agitated when Wynn-Williams declined to come on the plane's single bed with her on the return flight.
But a Meta spokesperson denied these claims as "a combination of outdated, previously reported claims and false accusations."
The representative also mentioned that Wynn-Williams was fired from Facebook eight years ago for "poor performance and toxic behavior." Then, according to reports, an internal probe determined her claims of harassment as "misleading and unfounded."
Moreover, Meta intimated that Wynn-Williams might have been financially supported by anti-Facebook campaigners, presenting the book as one element of a wider campaign against the group.
The memoir also depicts Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg as a man who moved away from being deeply passionate about engineering and coding and focused more on politics and popularity. The Times reports that Wynn-Williams compares Sandberg and Zuckerberg to the "careless people" of The Great Gatsby—people who make a mess and leave others to clean it up.
In January earlier this year, a judge approved Sandberg's sanctioning for erasing the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica suit-related emails despite having been told to save the information. The decision implied that there had been evidence to prove that Sandberg had erased emails likely to be pertinent to shareholder litigation and that she had taken a personal account under an alternative name.
Read also| Iran Rejects Nuclear Talks Amid Pressure and Intimidation
Read also| Rubio Suggests Possible Resumption of US Aid to Ukraine
