JAKARTA: An Indonesian minister known for sinking foreign vessels intruding into the country’s waters has challenged Mark Zuckerberg to a race after the Facebook Inc founder posted a picture of himself paddling on Lake Tahoe.
Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti threw down the gauntlet to Zuckerberg on Instagram in response to a post that showed him on a paddle board on Lake Tahoe, with the sun setting in the backdrop.
Pudjiastuti said she would love to challenge Zuckerberg to a "paddle race and win 10% of Facebook".
The minister said she would sell the shares and use the money to buy a "few big patrol vessels" to protect Indonesian waters from illegal fishing.
She would also purchase thousands of new fishing boats for Indonesian fishermen so that they can “go fishing more and better”, she said in comments that generated more than 5,000 responses on the social media platform and were liked by more 55,000 users. (continues below)
Susi Pudjiastuti, an accomplished paddleboarder, near her hometown of Pangandaran, Indonesia, March 30, 2018. (Photo: NYT)
Pudjiastuti said she would sell the shares back to Zuckerberg. Facebook and Zuckerberg had not responded to the minister’s challenge, though several netizens urged the Facebook chief executive to do so, the Jakarta Post reported. Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comments from Bloomberg on Wednesday.
A high-school dropout with a straight-talking reputation, Pudjiastuti has led a crackdown on illegal fishing in Indonesian waters with authorities seizing and destroying hundreds of boats, some of which have been blown up, as a warning to intruders.
Her efforts have been credited with boosting fish stocks, which rose by about 15% to 6.2 million tons over three years as of the third quarter of 2018, according to official data.