Meta CEO and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has met US Presidential-Elect Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago club and hotel in Florida to discuss the future of US tech innovation.
The meeting came as more senior figures realign themselves with the upcoming Trump presidency.
According to a November 27 report, the Facebook chief flew into Palm Beach, Florida for the meeting which, sources said, mostly consisted of exchanging pleasantries followed by a dinner.
“Mark was grateful for the invitation to join President Trump for dinner and the opportunity to meet with members of his team about the incoming administration,” a spokesman from Meta reportedly told the New York Times, describing it as “an important time for the future of American innovation”.
Such a statement contrasted with claims made by anonymous sources to the US broadsheet that Zuckerberg was the one to push for the meeting.
Our #interview with political consultant and writer @CraigWilly06 on how the EU will deal with the incoming #Trump administration is now on YouTube.
Watch the full episode 👉🏽 https://t.co/Ron45YrcqE #policy pic.twitter.com/nNCs3LrtVM
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) November 27, 2024
Zuckerberg has historically had a tense relationship with Trump, with his Facebook platform having repeatedly been accused of restricting Conservative and right-wing viewpoints.
One major flashpoint was the decision by Facebook moderators to effectively kill the spread of stories linked to the discovery of a laptop owned by outgoing US President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, at a repair shop in Delaware before the 2020 presidential election.
Zuckerberg confirmed that stories surrounding the contents of the laptop — which reportedly contained compromising information on the Biden family — were censored after the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) erroneously claimed that they could be linked to a “potential Russian disinformation operation”.
“It’s since been made clear that the reporting was not Russian disinformation, and in retrospect, we shouldn’t have demoted the story,” Zuckerberg admitted in a letter to the US Congress’ House Judiciary Committee earlier this year.
“We’ve changed our policies and processes to make sure this doesn’t happen again, for instance, we no longer temporarily delete things in the US while waiting for fact-checkers.”
Reports have indicated that Zuckerberg was identifying more closely with Libertarian political causes and was particularly concerned with the rise of anti-Semitism on US college campuses in the wake of the October 7, 2023 terror attack on Israel.
Speaking about the November 27 meeting, senior Trump advisor Stephen Miller described Zuckerberg as being a “supporter” of the change the President-elect was planning to bring about for the US economy.
“Mark Zuckerberg has been very clear about his desire to be a supporter of and a participant in this change that we’re seeing all around America, all around the world with this reform movement that Donald Trump is leading,” Miller, who will be Trump’s Deputy Chief of Policy, told Fox News.
“Mark, obviously, he has his own interests, and he has his own company, and he has his own agenda, but he’s made clear that he wants to support the national renewal of America under President Trump’s leadership.”
X-owner Elon Musk has deployed the platform’s “Grok” artificial intelligence chatbot in a “vulgar” post mocking former German chancellor Angela Merkel amid increasing tensions between Eurocrats and the US billionaire. https://t.co/UgUU1ZwYXA
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) November 26, 2024
Zuckerberg is far from the only senior Big Tech player to have bent the knee to Trump recently, with many in the sector apparently shifting their alignment closer to Trump even before his election win earlier in November.
Former Amazon boss Jeff Bezos — who owns The Washington Post — refused the publication permission to publicly endorse Democrat candidate Kamala Harris in the last days of the election campaigning, before later coming out to congratulate Trump on his “extraordinary political comeback and decisive victory” to take back the White House.
Apple boss Tim Cook also reportedly spoken with Trump in October, complaining to him about a multi-billion euro penalty imposed by the European Court of Justice (ECJ).
In September, Apple was ordered to pay Ireland €13 billion in unpaid taxes by the ECJ, putting an end to an eight-year row. The European Commission had accused Ireland of giving Apple illegal tax advantages in 2016 but Ireland had consistently argued against the need for the tax to be paid.
The Irish Government said it would respect the ruling.
Cook also publicly congratulated Trump on November 6 after his election win.
“We look forward to engaging with you and your administration to help make sure the United States continues to lead with and be fuelled by ingenuity, innovation and creativity,” he wrote on X.
Apple has confirmed it will not roll out essential features of its latest series of iPhones in the European Union until April 2025. https://t.co/g51TWgsfig
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) October 29, 2024
