Facebook lost one influential figure.
AirAsia Group's CEO Tony Fernandes closed his Facebook account, saying that “hate” being transmitted on the networks.
“The amount of hate that goes on in social media sometimes outweighs the good,” tweeted Fernandes. “But on Twitter I think the battle for me goes on."
Fernandes' Facebook account had 670,000 followers. He said that he is a big fan of the big blue social media, but cited that he had to think hard about whether to remain on Facebook after the live-streaming of the mass shooting in New Zealand's mosques.
Facebook could have done more to stop some of this. I myself have been a victim of so many fake bitcoin and other stories. 17 mins of a live stream of killing and hate!!!! Its need to clean up and not just think of financials.
— Tony Fernandes (@tonyfernandes) March 17, 2019
Anthony Francis Fernandes was born on 30 April 1964.
The Malaysian entrepreneur is the founder of Tune Group, a leisure and entertainment corporation, and best known as the CEO of budget airline AirAsia.
Fernandes bought the airline when it was a heavily indebted and losing money, as advised by then Malaysian Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamad in October 2001.
To acquire the company which at the time had two Boeing 737-300 jet aircraft and debts of $11 million, Fernandes mortgaged his home and used his personal savings.
He then re-introduced AirAsia as the first budget no-frills airline, with the tagline "Now everyone can fly".
After only one year since his takeover, AirAsia became an industry player, and had broken even and cleared all its debts. Fernandes managed to turn the failing government-linked commercial airline into a highly successful budget airline and a public-listed company.
As of February 2014, Forbes Asia valued Fernandes' net worth at $650 million, ranking him at number 28 on the Forbes list of Malaysia's Richest.
Fernandes is an avid social media users.
With about 1.3 million followers on Twitter, he had tweeted more than 20,200 times since joining in 2008, frequently commenting on the performance of his companies and sports teams.
