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According to The Wall Street Journal, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook and other social media platforms, broke from its usual practices by donating $1 million to President-elect Donald Trump’s inaugural fund. Notably, Meta made no such contribution for Trump’s 2017 inauguration or President Joe Biden’s in 2021.
This move marks a surprising shift for Zuckerberg, who has long been seen as a Trump antagonist. Whether the donation signals a genuine change of heart or a calculated attempt to foster goodwill remains to be seen.
Zuckerberg’s overtures to Trump appear to have started well before the 2024 election. Last month, he dined with the president-elect at Mar-a-Lago after two days of meetings between Meta executives and Trump’s incoming White House officials. In the lead-up to the election, Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance even joked on Joe Rogan’s podcast that Zuckerberg seemed to have “morphed into a closet Trump supporter,” attributing it to his martial arts training.
Additionally, Trump’s defiant response to a July assassination attempt reportedly impressed Zuckerberg. Yet, skepticism about Zuckerberg’s intentions remains widespread among Trump’s base, given his controversial role in previous elections.
In 2020, Zuckerberg donated $420 million to expand mail-in voting, a move critics say undermined the election’s legitimacy. Trump has not forgotten, threatening in an August book to imprison Zuckerberg if he interfered in the 2024 race. Zuckerberg himself admitted in a letter to Rep. Jim Jordan that he regretted Meta’s compliance with the Biden administration’s requests to censor COVID-19 content. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, mocked Zuckerberg’s admission, sarcastically calling him a “crazed conspiracy theorist.”
Unsurprisingly, Trump supporters remain wary. Investigative journalist Laura Loomer called Zuckerberg’s donation a ploy and demanded the money be returned. “He should be raided by the new FBI and jailed for stealing the election and murdering people with his mass censorship campaigns,” she tweeted. Comedian Terrence K. Williams accused Zuckerberg of trying to “buy his way out of prison,” while Ashley St. Clair argued that his actions reflect a thirst for power, adding, “It is beyond foolish to trust him.”
While some Christians and others may advocate forgiveness, many Trump supporters believe Zuckerberg’s $1 million donation falls far short of earning their trust. As a billionaire worth over $200 billion, Zuckerberg will need to do far more to prove his sincerity to Trump’s base.
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