The Meta CEO had banned the current president-elect while he was still in office in 2021
Mark Zuckerberg has visited Mar-a-Lago and had dinner with President-elect Donald Trump, after apparently backtracking on his previous move to censor Trump and fund the Democrats in 2020.
Multiple outlets spotted the Meta CEO at Trump’s Florida resort, the headquarters of the incoming administration. A company spokesperson confirmed that Zuckerberg and the president-elect met on Wednesday and had dinner together.
“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,” Meta said in a statement. “It’s an important time for the future of American innovation.”
Citing anonymous sources, the New York Times said that the meeting was initiated by Zuckerberg. The exact subject of their dinner conversation has remained a mystery.
“We do not comment on reports of private meetings that did or did not occur,” Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said initially. Deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller later confirmed the dinner, however.
“Mark, obviously, has his own interest, and he has his own company and he has his own agenda,” Miller told Fox News on Wednesday evening. “But he’s made clear that he wants to support the national renewal of America under Trump's leadership.”
Zuckerberg had banned Trump from Facebook and Instagram in 2021, while he was still the sitting US president, citing allegations that Trump had played a role in incited the January 6 riot at the US Capitol. The unrest followed protests over the 2020 election, which the Republican officially lost to Democrat Joe Biden.
In the run-up to the 2020 election, Zuckerberg had donated $400 million of his own money to various institutions in majority-Democrat areas, ostensibly to promote easier voting and democracy. These “Zuckerbucks,” as they became known, facilitated what Time magazine described as the “fortification” of the 2020 vote in favor of Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris.
This time around, however, Trump warned that “Zuckerbucks” would be prosecuted as election meddling. By that point, Zuckerberg had already praised Trump’s “badass” response to the attempted assassination at a rally in Pennsylvania, and said he would stay out of the election. By October, Trump was saying in interviews that he liked Zuckreberg “much better now.”
Meanwhile, Zuckerberg’s social media rival Elon Musk has become Trump’s closest adviser, with some media outlets dubbing him “first buddy.” Musk bought Twitter (now X) in 2022 and un-banned many people – including Trump – that the previous management worked with the government and other platforms to censor. He has been tapped to run a temporary outfit called the “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) along with Vivek Ramaswamy, with a mission to drastically slash the size of the US bureaucracy.
