Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook (ticker: FB), has a new best friend. Well, not exactly, but he did meet with a prominent world figure, metaphorically (and not so metaphorically) asserting Facebook‘s quest for global influence.
The tech leader Monday shared via a Facebook post that he and wife Priscilla Chan met with Pope Francis at the Vatican.
“We told him how much we admire his message of mercy and tenderness, and how he’s found new ways to communicate with people of every faith around the world,” Zuckerberg’s post reads.
But that isn’t nearly the most exciting part of this story. Mark Zuckerberg also presented the Pope with a unique gift: a drone. Specifically, it’s the Aquila, the company’s “solar-powered aircraft that will beam internet connectivity to places that don’t have it,” according to Zuckerberg’s post. TechCrunch points out the drone finished its inaugural test flight this summer.
Zuckerberg additionally met with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, and said in another Facebook post the two discussed the recent earthquake and how the Facebook community has banded together in the aftermath. They also discussed technology’s influence on the Italian economy and job creation.
“As part of the Facebook AI Research Partnership Program, we’re providing 26 state-of-the-art GPU servers to research institutions across Europe — including one to the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia here in Italy,” he added.
FB is a powerhouse Wall Street stock, up about 20.7 percent on the year and was trading at about $126 per share as of Monday afternoon.
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Facebook Inc.’s Mark Zuckerberg Met The Pope and Gave Him a Drone (FB) originally appeared on usnews.com
