Elon Musk deletes Facebook following Cambridge Analytica scandal

Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur, has deleted Facebook in the wake of the data privacy scandal surrounding the company.

A growing online movement has called for users to boycott the social media company after Cambridge Analytica, a data mining firm, was accused of harvesting data from 50 million Facebook profiles. 

Brian Acton, the co-founder of the messaging app WhatsApp, which was bought by Facebook in 2014 for $16 billion (£11.3 billion), led the charge sharing the hashtag #DeleteFacebook on Twitter.

Mr Musk, who created the electric car company Tesla and the rocket and spacecraft company SpaceX, joined the online debate on Friday tweeting "What's Facebook?" in response to Mr Acton. 

He promptly deleted both Tesla and SpaceX's Facebook pages, both of which were followed by millions of users. 

The revelations around the data breach have fed into a perception that Facebook’s global reach and the vast cache of personal data it has collected have made it over mighty.

In a separate Tweet, Mr Musk added that "Facebook influence is slowly creeping in" to the social media platform Instagram, which was bought by the company in 2012.

The Cambridge Analytica scandal, which has seen more revelations in recent days, has wiped $50 billion off Facebook’s stock market value and triggered investigations in the UK, US and Canada. 

Earlier this week Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's founder, apologised over the Cambridge Analytica scandal and vowed to tell Facebook users when their data is breached in the future. 

Mr Zuckerberg said he was “really sorry” for the “major breach of trust” that saw up information from up to 50 million online profiles obtained by Cambridge Analytica. 

The scandal has increased fears of potential election meddling as the political analytics firm has worked with a number of political groups, including Donald Trump's election campaign.

Facebook and Cambridge Analytica | The story so far

Facebook was made aware of concerns over Cambridge Analytica's access to data in 2015 after revelations by the Guardian but users impacted were not told. 

Mr Zuckerberg admitted it was a “mistake” not to inform those people who had been affected by the data breach, saying the company would do so in the future. 

What you need to know about the privacy row engulfing Facebook and Cambridge Analytica

Speaking to CNN, the 33-year-old said he was “happy” to appear before US Congress to answer questions about the scandal - something he has never done before.

Mr Zuckerberg expressed fears a “version two” of Russia’s 2016 election meddling was being planned by someone targeting the 2018 US mid-terms or other votes across the world.