Just four months after gracing the cover of Forbes magazine as PayPal’s savior, David Marcus is jumping ship — for Facebook.
Marcus, who took the reins as Paypal’s president two years ago, is leaving the payments company on June 27 to lead Facebook’s burgeoning messaging products, eBay said in a statement.
“Bittersweet day,” Marcus tweeted about the switch on Monday. “Immensely sad to leave the team I love, but excited by the journey ahead.”
“Now is the time, because I feel that PayPal has never been in a better position to capitalize on its unique place in the market,” Marcus said in a LinkedIn post explaining his decision to exit.
But the departure raises questions about the future of the payments company, including who will take the helm and lead PayPal’s shift to mobile at a time of growing competition.
EBay, which owns PayPal, said the payment company’s leadership team will report to eBay CEO John Donahoe until a new president is named.
PayPal has had a rough enough year without a leadership change, including an ugly battle with Carl Icahn, who wanted PayPal to be spun off from eBay.
EBay won the fight, but not without bruises — including a prediction from PayPal co-founder Elon Musk that it will either be spun off or “wither.”
Just after patching things up with Icahn, PayPal’s former head of global strategy, Rakesh Agrawal, left in a public spat with the company.
Agrawal, who started his own mobile consulting firm, told The Post that Marcus faced tough challenges at PayPal, including “a lot of dead weight in the executive suites,” and difficulties getting its payments product for merchants off the ground.
“If you were to spin off PayPal, you would find out how naked the emperor is,” Agrawal said.