Mark Zuckerberg's Sunscreen-Smothered Face While Surfing in Hawaii Goes Viral

Pictures of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg surfing in Hawaii with his face covered in sunscreen has gone viral on Twitter. Since surfacing online on Sunday, social media users have been circulating the photos and comparing Zuckerberg to a variety of pale-faced characters, including Batman's The Joker, Star Trek's android crew member Data and a mime artist.

Many of the posts focus on one image showing Zuckerberg looking directly towards the camera with a pure white glow, some attracting thousands of shares.

"Mark Zuckerberg getting a different kind of mask during the pandemic," one Twitter user wrote, as dozens of comparison memes were quickly made and shared.

As his company continues to wrestle with a widespread advertising boycott, the spread of COVID-19 misinformation and controversial posts from the president, the 36-year-old founder was papped during some R&R off the Hawaii coast on Saturday.

According to The New York Post, which published several images from the surf vacation via a content business called the Mega Agency, the social network's boss was riding a $12,000 Efoil electric surfboard board and was being tailed by a security team.

The billionaire tech CEO reportedly took to the glistening blue waters with pro surfer Kai Lenny, who, unlike Zuckerberg, was seen shirtless and without as much sunscreen.

The Hawaii appearance comes after a petition demanding Zuckerberg stop "colonizing" the island with his property plans gained more than 800,000 signatures.

The Change.org appeal focused on legal action that Zuckerberg previously filed against Hawaiians who owned areas of land close to his estates in the region. However, those lawsuits were dropped in 2017, with the CEO pledging to "find a better approach."

The petition this year went viral regardless.

"There are plenty of open spaces no one has claimed yet he has to pick a place where people are trying to make a living and support their families? It's disgusting. Don't let the privileged steal things that don't belong to them any longer," it read.

Zuckerberg's team later responded by asserting the claims were fundamentally wrong. "Mark is not suing native Hawaiians and no-one has been forced off of the land," a statement provided by a spokesperson for Zuckerberg's family office said.

Last Friday, Zuckerberg hit the headlines after openly criticizing Trump administration's handling of the ongoing novel coronavirus health crisis in the United States. Speaking with leading infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci, Zuckerberg said that politicians' treatment of the pandemic had been "disappointing."

"At this point, it is clear that the trajectory in the U.S. is significantly worse than many other countries and that our government and this administration have been considerably less effective in handling this," Zuckerberg said during an interview livestream.