How precious! Mark Zuckerberg says workers at Meta 'lovingly' refer to him as 'The Eye of Sauron' - because his boundless energy can 'just burn them'

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Mark Zuckerberg said his Meta employees 'lovingly' call him 'The Eye of Sauron' because his energy 'can burn them,' likening himself to all-seeing evil character in Lord of the Rings. 

During a late March interview, Zuckerberg was asked on The Tim Ferris Show about how he managed to be productive in the workplace when he is being bombarded with information. 

Before making the bizarre remark, Zuckerberg, 37, said he often struggled with productivity and needed to put himself 'in a situation where it's difficult to not focus' on the topic he wishes. 

'Some of the folks I work with at the company - they say this lovingly - but I think that they sometimes refer to my attention as the Eye of Sauron,' Zuckerberg confidently said.

'You have this unending amount of energy to go work on something, and if you point that at any given team, you will just burn them.'  

Far from being a flattering moniker, the Eye of Sauron represents the Dark Lord's terrifying omnipotence and terrible gaze in J. R. R. Tolkein's Lord of the Rings novels.  

The 'loving' nickname is used interchangeably with 'The Evil Eye' and 'The Red Eye'  by Lord of the Rings fans, prompting social media users to wonder whether Zuckerberg was reading the room when his employees made the reference.   

It is unclear, however, if Zuckerberg's workers indeed use the term sarcastically and he just missed the joke.  

Mark Zuckerberg said his Meta employees 'lovingly' call him 'The Eye of Sauron' because his energy 'can burn them' during interview on The Tim Ferris Show

Far from being a flattering moniker, the Eye of Sauron represents the Dark Lord's terrifying omnipotence and terrible gaze in J. R. R. Tolkein's Lord of the Rings novels

Zuckerberg also told Ferris he consciously tried to 'diffuse his energy' at work so as not to overwork his team with demands. 

The social media magnate added that he was very fond of impromptu feedback exchanges as opposed to scheduled meetings, because he enjoys concentrating his attention at the moment.

'I just think the engagement you get of having an immediate feedback loop, thinking about something, then going to talk to people about this, it's so much better than scheduling a meeting that you will have three weeks later when, maybe the topic will still be important, but not as it is going on at that time,' Zuckerberg said. 

Last year, Facebook rebranded its parent company and changed its name to Meta as Zuckerberg tried to distance the social media behemoth from mounting scandals.

But the controversies have followed the social media giant into 2022. Last week, Meta admitted that a Facebook bug led to a 'surge of misinformation' and other harmful content appearing in users' News Feeds between October and March. 

According to an internal document, engineers at Zuckerberg's firm failed to suppress posts from 'repeat misinformation offenders' for almost six months. 

During the period, Facebook systems also likely failed to properly demote nudity, violence and Russian state media during the war on Ukraine, the document said.  

Meta reportedly designated the issue a 'level 1 site event' – a label reserved for high-priority technical crises, like Russia's block of Facebook and Instagram. 

It was also revealed in March that Meta engaged a Republican consulting firm to conduct a national campaign to turn public opinion against rival TikTok. 

The national influence campaign by the firm Targeted Victory sought to blame TikTok for trends that actually originated on Facebook and paint the service as a danger to children, according to emails obtained by the Washington Post.  

Meta engaged a Republican consulting firm to conduct a national campaign to turn public opinion against rival TikTok. Pictured: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg 

The national influence campaign by the firm Targeted Victory sought to blame TikTok for trends that actually originated on Facebook, a new report says 

The effort included promoting dubious stories about the dangers of TikTok, placing Op-Eds and letters in news outlets, and pushing local politicians and political reporters to join the fight, the Post reported. 

Targeted Victory, founded by a former staffer on Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign, is one of the largest recipients of Republican campaign spending, raking in $237 million in 2020.

Zac Moffatt, the company's CEO, said in a statement: 'Targeted Victory's corporate practice manages bipartisan teams on behalf of our clients. It is public knowledge we have worked with Meta for several years and we are proud of the work we have done.'

It's unclear how much Meta has paid the firm for its ongoing influence campaign against TikTok.