Meta is working to build a good relationship with President-elect Donald Trump and made a sizable donation to prove it.
Meta confirmed to the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday that it has donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund. The donation is new ground for Meta; according to Bloomberg, the company did not make a similar donation before President Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021 or for Trump’s in 2017.
The inauguration fund is used for expenses that arise when a new president assumes office. Corporations are typically the largest donors to these funds, with Federal Election Commission records showing that Microsoft gave $500,000 each to Trump in 2017 and Biden in 2021, while Google donated $285,000 each.
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Meta’s million-dollar donation arrives two weeks after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg dined with Trump at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.
According to the Wall Street Journal, before the dinner, Zuckerberg demonstrated what the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses could do before giving the President-elect a pair as a gift. The $299 glasses can answer calls, take pictures, and send texts; Zuckerberg said at an earnings call in July that they have become a “bigger hit sooner than we expected.”
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Photo Credit: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Reports emerged last week that Zuckerberg is interested in helping shape tech policies with the Trump administration. Meta’s President of Global Affairs Nick Clegg told The Verge that Zuckerberg is interested in taking an active part in debates about maintaining America’s tech leadership.
Despite the recent dinner and donation, the relationship between Trump and Zuckerberg has been contentious. Meta suspended Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts in 2021 following what the company stated was “his praise for people engaged in violence at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.”
Meta reinstated his accounts in 2023, but the relationship between Trump and Zuckerberg had grown more tense. Trump accused Zuckerberg of cheating on the elections and wrote in a February 2023 Truth Social post: “Why isn’t he being prosecuted?”
In another Truth Social post from July, Trump called out “Zuckerbucks,” his nickname for Zuckerberg, and cautioned him to “be careful!”
In his book “Save America,” which came out on September 3, Trump wrote if Zuckerberg did “anything illegal” in the 2024 presidential election, he would go to prison.
In recent months, the relationship between the two has been more cordial with Zuckerberg calling Trump in August to apologize over an incorrectly labeled picture and congratulating Trump on his victory in November.
Zuckerberg is currently the third richest person in the world with a net worth of $224 billion, per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
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