Meta exec who co-founded Diem digital currency leaving the company

A Meta executive who co-founded Diem digital currency is set to leave the company at the end of this year to embark on new projects. 

David Marcus said in a blog post Tuesday he will be leaving the parent company of Facebook after seven years.

Marcus started at the company in 2014 and worked for the Messenger platform for years. A trusted lieutenant to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, he moved on to the company’s digital wallet service, Novi, and then co-founded Diem digital currency, Bloomberg reported.

“While there’s still so much to do right on the heels of hitting an important milestone with Novi launching — and I remain as passionate as ever about the need for change in our payments and financial systems — my entrepreneurial DNA has been nudging me for too many mornings in a row to continue ignoring it,” Marcus said. 

While there’s still so much to do right on the heels of launching Novi — and I remain as passionate as ever about the need for change in our payments and financial systems — my entrepreneurial DNA has been nudging me for too many mornings in a row to continue ignoring it. (2/7)

— David Marcus (@davidmarcus) November 30, 2021

Stephane Kasriel, the former chief executive of Upwork Inc., who joined Meta in 2020, will be taking over Marcus’s role in the company. 

Meta and Marcus have struggled to launch Diem after it was announced in 2019, amid pushback from lawmakers and regulators, and it has been scaled down from its original vision, according to Bloomberg.