Zuckerberg meets with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
President-elect Donald Trump dined on Wednesday with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago membership in Florida, bringing collectively the Fb founder and the previous president who was as soon as banned from that social community.
A Meta spokesperson confirmed the assembly in an announcement to CBS Information, saying that Zuckerberg “was grateful for the invitation to affix President Trump for dinner and the chance to satisfy with members of his group concerning the incoming Administration.”
Stephen Miller, who has been appointed deputy chief of employees for Trump’s second time period, mentioned Zuckerberg, like different enterprise leaders, needs to assist Trump’s financial plans. The tech CEO has been looking for to alter his firm’s notion on the suitable following a rocky relationship with Trump.
“Mark, clearly, he has his personal curiosity, and he has his personal firm and he has his personal agenda,” Miller mentioned in an interview on Fox Information concerning the assembly. “However he is made clear that he needs to assist the nationwide renewal of America below Trump’s management.”
Trump was kicked off Fb following the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol after figuring out that his posts had probably inspired the violence that occurred that day. The corporate restored his account in early 2023, however with sure “guardrails.” In July, these restrictions had been lifted by Meta.
Trump has a mixed 65 million followers on Fb and Instagram.
Throughout the 2024 marketing campaign, Zuckerberg didn’t endorse a candidate for president.
Zuckerberg has since taken a extra optimistic stance towards Trump. Earlier this 12 months, he praised Trump’s response to his first assassination try, calling it “badass.” Zuckerberg additionally complained that senior Biden administration officers pressured Fb to “censor” some COVID-19 content material throughout the pandemic.
Nonetheless, Trump in latest months had continued to assault Zuckerberg publicly. In July, he posted a message on his personal social community Reality Social threatening to ship election fraudsters to jail partially by citing a nickname he used for the Meta CEO. “ZUCKERBUCKS, watch out!” Trump wrote.
The Thanksgiving eve go to additionally comes as tech mogul Elon Musk has develop into extra influential in Trump’s Make America Nice Once more motion, contributing an estimated $200 million by his political motion committee to assist elect Trump. Musk is the billionaire proprietor of the X social community, a competitor to Meta.
Trump’s X account, then often called Twitter, was additionally suspended in January 2021. However his account was reinstated in November 2022 following Musk’s buy of the corporate. Should reinstated Trump’s account after posting a ballot asking customers whether or not to take action.
Musk has spent appreciable time at Mar-a-Lago because the election, and Trump chosen him to steer an outdoor advisory panel often called the “Division of Authorities Effectivity” to determine waste with Vivek Ramaswamy, a enterprise capitalist and former GOP presidential candidate.
