Facebook’s Head of Messenger to Leave Company Next Year

He joined

Facebook,

FB 1.55%

now called

Meta Platforms Inc.,

FB 1.55%

in 2015.

The announcement comes as

David Marcus

—a longtime Facebook executive who led the company’s heavily scrutinized cryptocurrency initiatives—announced his resignation last week. Mr. Marcus, who worked on Messenger before Mr. Chudnovsky took over, is set to leave the company at the end of the year.

Facebook’s chief creative officer, Mark D’Arcy, left the company earlier this year. The company’s chief technology officer,

Mike Schroepfer,

plans to step down next year.

The wave of departures come as Chief Executive

Mark Zuckerberg

is trying to shift the focus of the company with a high-profile bet on the metaverse, an emerging online realm some people see as the future of the internet.

“I love this company and this team, and as a result, making this call turned out to be one of the hardest decisions in my life,” Mr. Chudnovsky said in a post on his personal Facebook page. “I have no plans to retire, but I am looking forward to taking a good, many months long break, spending more time with my friends, helping companies, helping people, traveling, reading, exploring, and learning,” he added.

Mr. Chudnovsky wasn’t immediately available for additional comment. Jennifer Hakes, communications director for Messenger, confirmed Mr. Chudnovsky’s announcement.

The departures come at a time of heightened criticism following revelations in The Wall Street Journal’s Facebook Files series that showed the social-media company knew its platforms had flaws that caused harm to some of its users. Mr. Zuckerberg has said the criticism paints a false picture of the company he co-founded.

Write to Talal Ansari at [email protected]