What the Zuck? From struggling to drink water or Guinness to cringe attempts to socialise or peek at Lauren Sanchez's cleavage, Mark Zuckerberg's most awkward moments

Mark Zuckerberg is pretty prone to public gaffes and blunders. 

And he showed that once more this week when he went viral for drinking a pint of Guinness 'like a 10-year-old with his first beer' on a podcast. 

This, however, is hardly the first time the Facebook creator has made a social faux pas in public. 

In 2018, he was infamously unable to drink water properly while being grilled during a crucial political hearing. 

And he met ridicule last year for 'accidentally' looking at the chest of Lauren Sanchez, wife of fellow tech billionaire Jeff Bezos, at a prestigious event. 

Here, we take a look at the Meta mogul's most awkward moments. 

Zuckerberg 'accidentally' peeks at Lauren Sanchez's chest

Mr Zuckerberg isn't exactly known for his well-developed social graces. 

Last year at US President Donald Trump's presidential inauguration, the Meta CEO was seemingly caught on camera taking a peek at the chest of Lauren Sanchez, now the wife of fellow tech mogul Jeff Bezos. 

Ms Sanchez and Mr Bezos, who at the time were engaged, attended the ceremony at the Capitol Rotunda in Washington, DC, in January 2025. 

Sat next to Mr Zuckerberg, the couple were chatting away with Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner. 

Mr Zuckerberg was stuck between Mr Kushner and Ms Sanchez, and appeared to not know what to do with himself, despite the fact that his wife Priscilla Chan was sat next to him. 

As he looked around awkwardly, he seemed to glance at Ms Sanchez for a brief moment, before turning his head in the opposite direction and refusing to make eye contact with anyone. 

Neither Ms Sanchez nor Mr Bezos seemed to notice the blunder, though many online were quick to point out the gaffe. 

One social media user wrote: 'Zuckkyyy you dogg!!' 

A second said: 'Focus on the important stuff.' 

Meanwhile former Selling Sunset star Christine Quinn mocked Mr Zuckerberg, writing: 'Our favourite Lizardman Mark Zuckerberg's cold, dead eyes were locked on her cleavage like he was trying to programme his next algorithm off it. WTF is going on America.'

Zuckerberg struggles to drink water properly during a major hearing

Getting grilled at the heart of the world's most powerful democracy is probably no one's idea of a fun afternoon. 

But in April 2018, that's exactly where Mr Zuckerberg found himself. US senators needled him about Facebook's role in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which saw a British consulting firm improperly harvesting the personal data of up to 87million Facebook users. 

As the CEO of Facebook, Mr Zuckerberg was shoved under the limelight and made to answer probing questions about his business's practices. 

Footage from the hearing showed a pallid and nervous Mr Zuckerberg picking up a glass of water and slowly raising it to his lips. 

He was seen taking a tiny sip of water while wearing a thousand-yard stare on his face. 

The 2018 clip immediately went viral, as it played into jokes about Mr Zuckerberg's awkward tendencies. 

One social media user wrote at the time: 'Me when I realise my actions have a consequence.'

Another, writing as if they were Mr Zuckerberg, said in a post to X: '"Don't forget to drink the water, humans like water".'

Even infamous podcaster Joe Rogan got in on the action several years later. During a 2022 appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, the host jokingly told the tech CEO: 'I don't like the way you sip water though, you sipping water at the Senate, you were sipping water like a robot.'

He then asked Mr Zuckerberg to take a swig of water in front of him, which he did with a smile. 

The Meta CEO defended himself by saying: 'The Senate testimony is not exactly an environment that is set up to accentuate the humanity of the subject.

'If you're up there for six or seven hours, you're going to make some face that's worth making a meme out of.'

Zuckerberg grimaces while drinking Guinness

'Money can't buy taste,' the old saying goes. 

Never has that been more true than in the case of Mr Zuckerberg, who this week went viral for his reaction to a pint of Guinness. 

The 42-year-old Meta founder was speaking on John Collison's Cheeky Pint podcast alongside his Chief of AI Alexander Wang, discussing the tech firm's latest AI model. 

The trio began the show by toasting a pint of the Irish stout and taking a swig. 

Mr Zuckerberg appeared to regret his decision almost immediately. After he tentatively took a small sip, he appeared to grimace slightly as he forced himself to swallow his drink. 

After finishing his sip, he turned away slightly and blinked several times. 

Commenters pointed out that he later pushed his glass away, almost out of reach. 

One person said in response to the clip: 'Never seen someone try and chew a Guinness.' 

Another said: 'Zuckerberg trying to enjoy Guinness and failing is one of the funniest things to me.' 

And a third said: 'I'm not a fan of Guinness, but I can drink it without looking like a 10-year-old with his first beer.'

He glumly responded to the viral clip, writing on X: 'That's just my face.'

An out-of-place Zuckerberg at the UFC

Perhaps one of the strangest facts about Mr Zuckerberg is that he is a massive fan of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). 

So much so that in 2024, he managed to snag a front-row seat for a UFC match between Alexander Volkanovski and Ilia Topuria at the Honda Center in California. 

Even better for the Facebook mogul, Volkanovski invited him to act as a cornerman between the two featherweight fighters. 

Though he donned a full UFC tracksuit, Mr Zuckerberg looked very out of place in the high-intensity world of MMA fighting. 

He was seen awkwardly nodding along to Volkanovski’s walkout music, before the UFC star's actual coaches almost completely ignored his offers of help. 

Social media users immediately noticed the cringeworthy moment. One person wrote: 'Mark Zuckerberg trying his hardest to look like a normal functioning human.'

A second social media user said: 'Mark Zuckerberg looks like that really nice kid trying to fit in & hang with the bad kids.' 

A third, meanwhile, wrote: 'Awkward robot Mark Zuckerberg tries to convince everyone he is human at the UFC 298 fight between Volkanovski and Topuria.'

Worse still for Mr Zuckerberg, Volkanovski suffered a devastating second-round knockout to Topuria. 

Zuckerberg on FB live struggling to understand the 'Zucc' meme

You'd think that being the leader of one of the world's biggest social media companies would make you hip to trends and memes. 

But Mr Zuckerberg made abundantly clear in a 2016 Facebook Live stream he hosted that he isn't as down with the kids as he thought. 

In response to a commenter saying: 'Mark, give me the Zucc,' he awkwardly asks: 'You can follow up and tell me what that means and I’ll … I’ll try my best to do it for you.'

Later, he asks: 'What’s the whole “zucc” thing? Z-U-C-C. I haven’t seen this before.'

For those out of the loop, the phrase is a portmanteau of 'Zuckerberg' and a meme that references a lewd act. 

Zuckerberg's stilted chat with International Space Station (ISS) astronauts 

2016 was a big year for Facebook, filled with many challenges. Accusations of imperialism in India, censorship of historical photos, and livestreaming footage of human rights violations came flying at the firm left, right and centre. 

But one of the positives of that year was the public rollout of Facebook Live, a feature that allowed anyone to livestream from their device. 

To hype this up, Facebook attempted to take its technology to the final frontier. 

In June 2016, he held a live Q&A that showed him sitting in Facebook's California headquarters and talking to Nasa's Tim Kopra and Jeff Williams and the European Space Agency's Tim Peake on the ISS. 

Shortly after the stream started, he asked the astronauts: 'Can you hear me okay?'

Silence hung in the air for several agonising seconds, as the three astronauts waited for the signal to reach them. 

Eventually, Mr Zuckerberg's words reached them, and Mr Kopra was able to respond with a genial: 'Hey Mark, read you loud and clear. It's a pleasure to talk with you today.'

The Meta CEO was clearly embarrassed by the laggy tech, as he immediately said: 'I have to say, when you're building products to try to connect everyone in the world, connecting folks who are out in space is about as extreme and cool as it gets.' 

After telling the rocketeers how much he appreciated the opportunity to speak with them, Mr Zuckerberg was forced to endure another awkward pause. 

But this time, he decided to break that silence by launching into a question. 

Unfortunately, by the time he began asking the question, the astronauts had had a chance to listen to his message and respond, leading to a significant overlap of their words that left their chat stilted and awkward. 

Mr Zuckerberg, seemingly keen to show off his company's flashy new technology, looked mortified and grabbed a nearby bottle of water to distract his hands.