According to the BBC, Mark Zuckerberg, the head of the Meta Group, which owns Facebook and Instagram, among others, visited Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort. According to the British media, this is another evidence of a noticeable revival in their once cold relations.
As the BBC points out, the president-elect already has a close relationship with a leading figure in the technology industry, X (formerly Twitter) owner Elon Musk.
However, historically, Trump and Zuckerberg have not been so close. As the BBC notes, after the riot in the Capitol, Trump was banned from using Facebook and Instagram. In addition, the president-elect has threatened the leader of Meta that he will be jailed if he interferes in the 2024 presidential elections.
But recently there have been signs of an improvement in the strained relationship, culminating in Zuckerberg's dinner with the president-elect at his Florida residence.
A Meta spokesperson told the BBC: “Mark was grateful for President Trump's invitation to the dinner and the opportunity to meet with members of his team and discuss the next administration.” “This is a critical time for the future of American innovation,” he said in a statement.
Relationship between Donald Trump and Mark Zuckerberg
In August, Trump wrote in a book that Zuckerberg would “spend the rest of his life in prison” if he tried to meddle in the 2024 US election. The president-elect later softened his stance, saying on a podcast in October that he was “glad Zuckerberg is not running” and thanked him for the phone call after the assassination attempt, according to the BBC.
Trump was banned from the Facebook and Instagram Meta platforms in 2021 for “glorifying the individuals involved in the violence on January 6 at the Capitol.” But now this suspension has been lifted.
In August of this year, Zuckerberg expressed regret at the suspension of advertising content related to the accusations of Joe Biden's son, Hunter, who were the subject of right-wing conversations in the US ahead of the 2020 presidential election.
He also announced that he would no longer make any donations to support election infrastructure after some saw a $400 million donation in 2020 as a way to avoid donation limits. Zuckerberg said his donations were nonpartisan and his goal was to remain neutral during the election process.
It is unclear what Trump and Zuckerberg discussed during the dinner at Trump's Florida home. The BBC recalls that “however, Meta has faced increased regulation in recent years, including an antitrust case by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 2020.”
Main image credit: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images
