According to a recent report, the social media giant Meta has donated $1 million to President-elect Donald Trump’s inaugural fund.
Want to get caught up on what's happening in SoCal every weekday afternoon? Click to follow The L.A. Local wherever you get podcasts.
The report comes from The Hill, which confirmed the donation with Meta on Thursday. Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, visited President-elect Trump last month at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
According to Meta’s president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, Zuckerberg met with Trump because he is “very keen to play an active role in the debates that any administration needs to have about maintaining America’s leadership in the technological space.”
The relationship between Trump and Zuckerberg is strenuous as the former president was famously banned from Facebook following the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection. His account was reinstated in 2023.
Trump has also been very vocal in his criticism of Facebook, saying at one point that it was an “enemy of the people.” Trump has since changed his stance on the platform, saying he likes Zuckerberg “much better now.”
The Meta CEO has also appeared to become more favorable of Trump, saying after he was shot in July that Trump was a “badass” for how he immediately reacted. However, he didn’t endorse either candidate during the 2024 presidential election.
Like his social media competitor, X owner Elon Musk, Zuckerberg is now working to build a relationship with Trump as a means to potentially have a say in the upcoming administration.
The move also comes at a time when Meta is looking to shift from political content around election time. Earlier this year, Instagram said it wasn’t going to promote or recommend political content unless users manually changed their settings.
Another tech leader who is scheduled to have a meeting with Trump is Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. The pair are expected to meet sometime next week.
“Jeff Bezos is coming up next week,” Trump said after ringing the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange.
Follow KNX News 97.1 FM
Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | TikTok