Meta chief Zuckerberg dines with Trump at Mar-a-Lago
28 November 2024, 08:34
The US President-elect was once banned from Facebook, following the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.
Donald Trump has dined with Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg at the US President-elect’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.
The meeting brings together the Facebook founder and the former president who was once banned from that social network.
Stephen Miller, who has been appointed deputy chief of staff for Mr Trump’s second term, said Mr Zuckerberg, like other business leaders, wants to support the incoming American leader’s economic plans.
The tech baron has been seeking to change his company’s perception on the right following a rocky relationship with Mr Trump.
“Mark, obviously, he has his own interest, and he has his own company and he has his own agenda,” Mr Miller said in an interview on Fox News about the meeting.
“But he’s made clear that he wants to support the national renewal of America under Trump’s leadership.”
A spokesperson for Meta confirmed that Mr Zuckerberg and Mr Trump met on Wednesday, saying he was invited for dinner with the President-elect and other members of his team to talk about the incoming administration.
Mr Trump was kicked off Facebook following the January 6 2021 attack on the US Capitol. The company restored his account in early 2023.
During the 2024 campaign, Mr Zuckerberg did not endorse a candidate for the presidency.
Mr Zuckerberg has since taken a more positive stance towards Mr Trump. Earlier this year, he praised Mr Trump’s response to his first assassination attempt, calling it “badass”.
Mr Zuckerberg also complained that senior Biden administration officials had pressured Facebook to “censor” some Covid-19 content during the pandemic.
In recent months, Mr Trump had continued to attack Mr Zuckerberg publicly.
In July, he posted a message on his own social network Truth Social threatening to send election fraudsters to prison, in part by citing a nickname he used for the Meta chief, writing: “ZUCKERBUCKS, be careful!”
The visit on the eve of the US Thanksgiving holiday also comes as tech mogul Elon Musk has become more influential in Mr Trump’s Make America Great Again movement, contributing an estimated 200 million dollars (£158 million) through his political action committee to help elect Mr Trump.
Mr Musk is the billionaire owner of the X social network, a competitor to Meta. He has spent considerable time at Mar-a-Lago since the election, and Mr Trump selected him to lead an outside advisory panel known as the “Department of Government Efficiency” to identify waste with Vivek Ramaswamy, a venture capitalist and former Republican presidential candidate.
