Meta has contributed $1 million to President-elect Donald Trump’s inaugural fund. This news follows a private meeting between Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Trump at Mar-a-Lago two weeks earlier.
The Wall Street Journal initially reported the donation. In the lead-up to the election, Zuckerberg had increasingly demonstrated a closer alignment with Trump. Zuckerberg remarked during an interview with “The Circuit” podcast at Meta’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California, “Seeing Donald Trump get up after getting shot in the face and pump his fist in the air with the American flag is one of the most badass things I’ve ever seen in my life.”
According to reports, several top executives from major American tech companies, including Apple’s Tim Cook, Google’s Sundar Pichai, and Amazon’s Andy Jassy, had sought meetings with Trump before Election Day, eager to engage with the then-presidential candidate amid a closely contested race.
Trump, on his part, has appeared to relish his growing rapport with tech leaders. He has boasted about his private discussions with them in interviews and public appearances and now praises companies he once blamed for his 2020 election loss, which had sparked years of Republican-led scrutiny of tech firms.
As recently as March, Trump called Facebook an “enemy of the people” in a CNBC interview, causing Meta’s shares to drop by over 4% that day. Trump has also previously threatened to imprison “election fraudsters,” seemingly referring to Zuckerberg in a July post on his Truth Social platform.
Frances Ibiefo
Follow us on:
