Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and the UK government just played a global game of chicken — and it seems like the UK may have lost?

On May 1, the UK threatened Zuckerberg with a formal summons if he were to set foot on UK soil, in an attempt to get Facebook’s CEO to personally testify about the Cambridge Analytica scandal. 

But in a letter dated May 14 (PDF), Facebook’s UK head of public policy, Rebecca Stimson, replied that Zuckerberg still “has no plans to meet with the committee or travel to the UK at the present time.”

In response, UK Parliament Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee chair Damien Collins expressed his disappointment, writing:

“If Mark Zuckerberg truly recognises the ‘seriousness’ of these issues as they say they do, we would expect that he would want to appear in front of the Committee and answer questions that are of concern not only to Parliament, but Facebook’s tens of millions of users in this country.”

But Collins also backed down a bit, adding that the UK government is now open to speaking with Zuckerberg over video chat — suggesting that an in-person appearance may not be necessary after all. Zuckerberg 2, UK 0? 

MP Collins’ office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Facebook pointed us back to Stimson’s letter when reached for comment.

Disclosure: Sean’s wife works for Facebook as an internal video producer.