Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg told employees on a company call that Joe Biden is going to be the next US president, while criticizing misinformation spread by the incumbent Donald Trump, Buzzfeed News reported on Thursday, citing audio from the call.
"I believe the outcome of the election is now clear and Joe Biden is going to be our next president," Zuckerberg was quoted as saying.
"It's important that people have confidence that the election was fundamentally fair, and that goes for the tens of millions of people that voted for Trump."
Trump has refused to concede victory in and has been claiming the national election was rigged against him.
The Republican president's team is pressing ahead with a series of legal challenges, though his lawyers have lost the major lawsuits they have filed so far and have been unable to produce evidence of major fraud.
A challenge
Zuckerberg reportedly told Facebook employees it was "unhelpful" for people to use the social media network to raise expectations that the election results would change following recounts or court actions.
"I think it, of course, is a challenge when the president of the United States is sharing some of these things directly," Buzzfeed quoted him as saying, in an aside against Trump.
Biden, meanwhile, has begun to move ahead with his transition, despite no cooperation from the Trump administration, which seems to be aiming to cling to power.
