Meta, the parent company of Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, said Thursday it has donated $1 million to President-elect Donald Trump’s inaugural fund.
A company spokesperson confirmed the donation, The Wall Street Journal reported late Wednesday evening.
The donation is the latest twist in the up-and-down relationship between Trump and CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s company. Earlier this year, Trump publicly threatened Zuckerberg with “life in prison” if he did something Trump deemed illegal during this year’s presidential election.
The two men had dinner together at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida last month.
Zuckerberg declined during the campaign to endorse Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris, though he did praise Trump’s response to an assassination attempt in July and called his raised fist after the shooting “one of the coolest things I’ve ever done in my life.” seen’. .”
The company’s relationship with Trump and other politicians has long been complicated due to the large number of people who get their news from Meta’s apps. During Trump’s successful 2016 campaign, Facebook helped reach voters with digital ads. In 2021, Meta suspended Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts, as well as some other platforms such as Twitter, following the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. Trump’s accounts have now been restored. But in recent years, the company has said it is trying to reduce the amount of politics in people’s feeds.
Over the next four years, the Trump administration will set federal policy in a host of areas important to Meta and other tech companies, including the regulation of artificial intelligence and antitrust enforcement.
At the end of Trump’s first term, in December 2020, the Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit in an attempt to break up Meta, then known as Facebook. The vote was 3-2, with then-Chairman Joseph Simons, a Trump appointee, joining two Democratic appointees in approving the lawsuit. The case is still pending.
A Meta board member, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, told the Free Press website this week that he has spent about half of his time at Mar-a-Lago since the Nov. 5 election helping with the transition. Peter Thiel, another investor and former Meta board member, is also a longtime Trump advisor.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
