Facebook lost chief product officer Chris Cox and head of WhatsApp Chris Daniels, as part of CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s recently announced plans to rebuild the social network with a focus on privacy.

Daniels, who joined Facebook in 2011, became head of WhatsApp in May 2018 as part of a previous management shake-up after the messaging app’s co-founder Jan Koum stepped down, reportedly due to clashes with parent Facebook over user data, encryption and how to monetise the messaging app.

At the same time Cox, who was in charge of the flagship Facebook service and considered Zuckerberg’s right-hand man, assumed overall responsibility for Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger in what can be considered the first move to marry the services more closely together.

Zuckerberg said in a statement Cox had played many central roles at the company but that “as we embark on this next major chapter” the executive decided “now is the time to step back from leading these teams.”

As for Daniels, the CEO said he did “great work in many roles, including running our business development team, leading Internet.org…and most recently at WhatsApp, where he has helped define the business model for our messaging services going forward”.

Zuckerberg announced Daniels will be replaced by Will Cathcart, VP, Product Management, and Fidji Simo, director of product, will be the new head of the Facebook app.

The CEO explained Cox will not be replaced for now: “Instead, the leaders of Facebook (Fidji Simo), Instagram (Adam Mosseri), Messenger (Stan Chudnovsky), and WhatsApp (Will Cathcart) will report directly to me.”