Reddit Co-Founder Alexis Ohanian: Facebook's Rebrand To Meta 'Masterstroke In Distraction'

Alexis Ohanian, the co-founder and former executive chairman of Reddit, weighed in on Facebook Inc’s FB rebrand to Meta Platforms Inc.

What Happened: In an interview with CNBC's "Squawk Box,' Ohanian called Facebook’s move to change its name to Meta a “masterstroke in diversion and distraction.”

“They should not be underestimated,” said Ohanian, adding there is a bottom-up movement to create the metaverse.

“You see a lot of this happening in the crypto community. You’re seeing a lot of people building … what most of us hope will become a much more organic type of world, rather than a top-down Facebook imposed one.”

The Reddit co-founder noted that while Facebook has no shortage of great engineers and developers at their disposal, he would rather bet on the “Davids” rather than the “Goliaths” to build the metaverse sooner and better.

“My hope for that future metaverse is it’s not governed by one company but rather of the people and by the people,” he said.

Ohanian went on to say that governments will be paying close attention to its future acquisitions, and as a result, it isn’t likely that Facebook will acquire a crypto company in the near future.

Facebook’s cryptocurrency project “Diem” has been in development for several years on account of a series of regulatory hurdles.

Most recently, Facebook launched a pilot of its Novi crypto wallet after partnering with crypto exchange Coinbase Global Inc COIN and blockchain infrastructure firm Paxos.

Only a few hours after it announced the pilot, U.S. Senators Brian Schatz, Tina Smith, Richard Blumenthal, Sherrod Brown and Elizabeth Warren called for the project to be shut down.

FB Price Action: Meta shares lost 0.58% Tuesday, closing at $328.08. 

Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash.