Eduardo Saverin, the Facebook co-founder whose strained relationship with Mark Zuckerberg was popularized by the 2010 Aaron Szorkin film, “The Social Network,” offered his congratulations to his former partner on Facebook’s IPO Friday.
In a bilingual statement written in English and Portugese, Saverin congratulated Zuckerberg and posted a screen shot from the 2004 launch of the website, back when they were still students at Harvard and the site was still called “The Facebook.”
“On the eve of the Facebook public float, 8 plus year in the making, I as co-founder wanted to look back and cherish Facebook’s early beginning,” said Saverin, in a status update posted to his wall.
“Congrats to everyone involved in the project from day one till today, and I especially wanted to congratulate Mark Zukerberg on keeping tremendous stead-fast focus, however hard that was, on making the world a more open and connected place,” he said.
“The Social Network” portrayed Saverin’s strained relationship with Zuckerberg and his increasingly diminished role in the company. Saverin had provided seed funding to Facebook.
However, PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, Facebook’s first investor, dismissed the notion that Saverin was cut out of the company in the way that film depicted.
“You know, he was not doing his job,” said Thiel. “And, therefore, you know … his job was to sell advertisements for Facebook, and he was not remotely doing that job.”
New York Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer attacked Saverin on Thursday, accusing him of expatriating to Singapore in order to dodge paying capital taxes from the Facebook IPO.