Peter Thiel has been reelected to Facebook’s board as the company does not plan to give up on its prospects in China

Mark Zuckerberg can now officially remain in power at Facebook. At the company’s annual shareholder meeting, investors approved the new non-voting Class C capital stock, which will keep the CEO in total control of the social networking website. The group also approved the reelection of its board of directors including controversial investor, Peter Thiel.

Earlier, at the company's first quarter earnings, Mr. Zuckerberg proposed the introduction of new non-voting stock. With the help of the stock, the CEO will be able to donate 99% of his shares and continue his philanthropic work with his wife, Priscilla Chan. He will also continue to lead Facebook — the world’s most popular social network.

During the question and answer session at the meeting, Mr. Zuckerberg was asked if he would work with the social network alongside his philanthropic activities. He replied that he has plans to run Facebook for a very long time in the future. The social network’s performance has posted stellar results till now, and it has helped investors vest their confidence in the company.

Apart from the approval of stock, eight directors of the company were up for reelection, which also included Peter Thiel. All the directors were reelected by the company, with the limelight on Mr. Thiel, who has been a major investor in the company since its inception. However, over the last few weeks, he has been under fire for sponsoring a lawsuit against gossip website, Gawker.

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg had earlier clarified that the actions of Mr. Thiel are personal and are in no way related to the actions of the company. He also confirmed that Mr. Thiel won’t leave the company any time in the near future. The longest standing board member of the company, Mr. Thiel, was not present at the time of reelection at the meeting.

It needs to be seen whether the reelection of Mr. Thiel would cause any rift between Facebook and its publishers. It may ignite a sense of concern among publishers that the director of the social platform has spent millions of dollars to fight a case against a media house. Gawker went bankrupt fighting the Hulk Hogan lawsuit which was backed by Peter Thiel.

For now, Facebook has no plans to merge WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. When asked if the two messaging platforms could be made one, Zuckerberg denied of any such possibility for now. He said both of them have a lot of potential to grow individually and both offer different services to the people.

China is one country where Facebook is not accessible as the social network is banned over there. At the meeting, the COO said that the company is studying the Chinese market for now. She informed that she was in China last week to meet with different publishers who use their platform for ads. Companies find it difficult to operate their business in the mainland due to strong regulations imposed by Chinese regulators, as they aim to promote local brands in the country.