James Martin/CNET

Where in the world is Mark Zuckerberg?

Facebook's CEO and co-founder was noticeably absent Tuesday from a company briefing at which employees were given the opportunity to ask questions about the social network's relationship with Cambridge Analytica, according to The Daily Beast.

Zuckerberg wasn't the only Facebook executive to keep a low-profile, according to The Daily Beast, which reported COO Sheryl Sandberg also was a no-show for the meeting. Instead, the internal gathering was run by Paul Grewal, a Facebook lawyer.

The social network's relationship with Cambridge Analytica has become the focus of controversy in the wake of reports the voter-profiling firm used data from 50 million Facebook accounts while working for the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential election. The data had initially been collected by a researcher who than transferred it to Cambridge Analytica in violation of Facebook policies.

A Facebook spokeswoman said she didn't "have anything to share" about the meeting.

First published on March 20, 12:58 p.m. PT.

Update, 1:39 p.m.: Adds response from Facebook spokeswoman.

CNET Magazine: Check out a sample of the stories in CNET's newsstand edition.

'Alexa, be more human': Inside Amazon's effort to make its voice assistant smarter, chattier and more like you.