Meta is working to construct a very good relationship with President-elect Donald Trump and made a large donation to show it.
Meta confirmed to the Wall Road Journal on Wednesday that it has donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund. The donation is new floor for Meta; based on Bloomberg, the corporate didn’t make an analogous donation earlier than President Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021 or for Trump’s in 2017.
The inauguration fund is used for bills that come up when a brand new president assumes workplace. Firms are usually the biggest donors to those funds, with Federal Election Fee information exhibiting that Microsoft gave $500,000 every to Trump in 2017 and Biden in 2021, whereas Google donated $285,000 every.
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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 membership in Palm Seashore, Florida.
In keeping with the Wall Road Journal, earlier than the dinner, Zuckerberg demonstrated what the Ray-Ban Meta sensible glasses might do earlier than giving the President-elect a pair as a present. The $299 glasses can reply calls, take photos, and ship texts; Zuckerberg mentioned at an earnings name in July that they’ve turn into a “greater hit prior to we anticipated.”
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Photograph Credit score: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg through Getty Pictures
Studies emerged final week that Zuckerberg is fascinated about serving to form tech insurance policies with the Trump administration. Meta’s President of World Affairs Nick Clegg instructed The Verge that Zuckerberg is fascinated about taking an lively half in debates about sustaining America’s tech management.
Regardless of the current dinner and donation, the connection between Trump and Zuckerberg has been contentious. Meta suspended Trump’s Fb and Instagram accounts in 2021 following what the corporate acknowledged was “his reward for folks engaged in violence on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.”
Meta reinstated his accounts in 2023, however the relationship between Trump and Zuckerberg had grown extra tense. Trump accused Zuckerberg of dishonest on the elections and wrote in a February 2023 Fact Social publish: “Why is not he being prosecuted?”
In one other Fact Social publish from July, Trump referred to as out “Zuckerbucks,” his nickname for Zuckerberg, and cautioned him to “watch out!”
In his e-book “Save America,” which got here out on September 3, Trump wrote if Zuckerberg did “something unlawful” within the 2024 presidential election, he would go to jail.
In current months, the connection between the 2 has been extra cordial with Zuckerberg calling Trump in August to apologize over an incorrectly labeled image and congratulating Trump on his victory in November.
Zuckerberg is at the moment the third richest particular person on this planet with a web value of $224 billion, per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
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