San Francisco, Nov 13 (IANS): Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has become the first Big Tech CEO to acknowledge that Joe Biden will be the next president of the US, at a time when Donald Trump has refused to accept his defeat and is fighting a legal battle.

The Facebook CEO told employees in a meeting: "I believe the outcome of the election is now clear and Joe Biden is going to be our next president.

According to BuzzFeed News, the Facebook CEO further said: "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."

His comments came as Facebook became the subject of criticism from several Biden campaign staffers who have complained about Facebook's handling of election ads and the impact misinformation has had on democracy, reports CNBC.

In his chat with employees, Zuckerberg also said that former Trump advisor Steve Bannon has not violated enough of Facebook's policies to be suspended by the company.

Facebook earlier this week removed a network of pages tied to Bannon.