Facebook’s boy billionaire leaves the tough stuff to grown-ups

The boy billionaire needed some added stature.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg replaced his usual gray T-shirt with a blue suit for his big day before Congress, a sartorial upgrade that evoked class-photo day at school.

The slight 33-year-old, led into the cavernous Senate hearing room by a phalanx of aides, appeared momentarily confused about where to sit, until aides beckoned toward the witness table.

Awaiting him on the leather chair: a four-inch-thick black foam cushion.

At least they didn’t try to put him in a booster seat.

It is going to take more than some firm foam to prop up Zuckerberg.

His creation, 14 years after it started in his Harvard University dorm room, has billions of users and has made Zuckerberg worth tens of billions of dollars.

But it has also violated the privacy expectations of millions of people, allowed Russia to interfere in U.S. elections and promoted the spread of fake news.

Zuckerberg came prepared with one message to those who would regulate Facebook: Trust me. “I’m committed to getting this right,” he promised. Problem is, whenever the questioning got tough, Zuckerberg made clear that he could not be trusted to give an answer.

How many improper data transfers to third parties have there been?

“I can have my team follow up with you.”

How many fake accounts have been removed? “I’m happy to have my team follow up with you.”

Zuckerberg was practically crying out for adult supervision.

Zuckerberg, of course, is no dummy. He was coached for the hearing by some of the best Washington hands money can buy.

His professed ignorance, therefore, was most likely a calculation that he could avoid committing to much — and it wouldn’t come back to bite him.

He was probably right. Senators seemed as if they were less interested in regulating him than in gawking at him.

Sam Ervin’s Watergate committee had seven members.

The committee probing the Titanic’s sinking also had seven.

The Joint Committee on the Investigation of the Pearl Harbor Attack had 10.

Total number of senators on the panel to question Zuckerberg on Tuesday afternoon: 44. They had to bring in seven folding tables to seat all the senators.

Zuckerberg read his opening statement about the data breach as it was written, including the “I’m sorry.”

But he was rather easier on himself when responding to questions, explaining that “it’s pretty much impossible, I believe, to start a company in your dorm room … without making some mistakes.”

Zuckerberg has come a long way from the dorm room, yet he still labored to play the grown-up at times Tuesday.

After a break in testimony, he returned to say that his “team” told him his testimony about Cambridge Analytica had been wrong. The questioning resumed. Zuckerberg told Sen. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., he looked “forward to having my team following up.”

He told Sen. Jerry Moran, RKan., he would “have my team follow up with you.”

He told Sen. Dean Heller, RNev., “I can follow up or I can have my team follow up.”

When he made a similar offer to Sen. Tom Udall, the Democrat from New Mexico refused to accept it.

“I’m talking about you, not your team,” he told Zuckerberg.

Go easy on the kid, Senator.