Facebook founder Zuckerberg may meet Russia’s Medvedev in Moscow

PanARMENIAN.Net - Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is expected to meet Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and other senior government officials next week during a visit to Moscow that might include a stop by the Skolkovo innovation center, The Moscow Times said.

On Tuesday, September 25 Medvedev's spokeswoman, Natalya Timakova, confirmed that preparations were being made for the meeting with Zuckerberg.

"The possibility of such a meeting is being worked out," Timakova told Interfax.

Forbes Russia first reported the planned talks on its website Tuesday. The magazine, citing a government source and a source close to Skolkovo, said Zuckerberg also would meet with Deputy Prime Ministers Arkady Dvorkovich and Vladislav Surkov.

Zuckerberg might meet Medvedev at the Digital October Center, in the former Red October chocolate factory, on Oct. 1 and then visit Skolkovo the following day, Forbes said.

Digital October, which promotes new technologies and technological entrepreneurship, according to its website, will host an annual forum on Oct. 5. It was not immediately clear whether Zuckerberg would attend the forum, which Medvedev addressed last year.

No schedule for Zuckerberg's visit has been released.

Zuckerberg has come under pressure as shares of Facebook, the world's largest social network, have dropped more than 40 percent from their May IPO price of $38.

One of Facebook's early investors was billionaire Alisher Usmanov, whose Mail.Ru Group and DST earned about $2.5 billion in the IPO.