The new chief executive of Mozilla, the firm behind the Firefox web browser, has resigned following a furore over a donation he made in support of a ban on gay marriage in California.
Brendan Eich has “chosen to step down” after less than two weeks in the job, Mitchell Baker, executive chairwoman of the Mozilla Foundation, which owns the company, announced in a blogpost on Thursday.
“We know why people are hurt and angry, and they are right: it’s because we haven’t stayed true to ourselves,” said Baker. “We didn’t act like you’d expect Mozilla to act. We didn’t move fast enough to engage with people once the controversy started. We’re sorry. We must do better.”
Eich was announced as Mozilla’s new chief executive on 24 March. The firm quickly came under sharp criticism because of a $1,000 donation he made in support of California’s successful Proposition 8 ballot measure in 2011. It also emerged that he had made campaign contributions in past years to fringe Republican candidates such as Pat Buchanan.
Buchanan once said in relation to the Aids crisis that “our promiscuous homosexuals appear literally hell-bent on Satanism and suicide”. He also once claimed that “homosexuals have declared war on nature, and now nature is exacting an awful retribution”.
Eich told the Guardian earlier this week that he would not resign. “I agree with people who say it wasn't private, but it was personal,” he said of the donation. “But the principle that I have operated by, that is formalised in our code of conduct at Mozilla, is it's really about keeping anything that's not central to our mission out of our office.
“If I stop doing that now I think I would be doing wrong that code of conduct and doing a disservice to Mozilla. And I really do think it's an important principle of inclusiveness for Mozilla to succeed.”
However Baker told recode.net in an interview earlier on Thursday that this was no longer the case. “It’s clear that Brendan cannot lead Mozilla in this setting,” she said, adding: “The ability to lead – particularly for the CEO – is fundamental to the role and that is not possible here.”
