LIVE UPDATES
UNITED STATES — Meta has donated $1 million to President-elect Donald Trump’s inaugural fund after a private meeting between Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Trump at Mar-a-Lago two weeks earlier.
The information about the donation was contained in The Wall Street Journal on Thursday.
Zuckerberg remarked during an interview with “The Circuit” podcast at Meta’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California, “Seeing Donald Trump get up after getting shot in the face and pump his fist in the air with the American flag is one of the most badass things I’ve ever seen in my life.”
According to reports, several top executives from major American tech companies, including Apple’s Tim Cook, Google’s Sundar Pichai, and Amazon’s Andy Jassy, had sought meetings with Trump before Election Day, eager to engage with the then-presidential candidate amid a closely contested race.
Trump, on his part, has enjoyed his growing rapport with tech leaders, although prior to the election, he has faulted some tech firms.
As recently as March, Trump called Facebook an “enemy of the people” in a CNBC interview, causing Meta’s shares to drop by over 4% that day. Trump has also previously threatened to imprison “election fraudsters,” seemingly referring to Zuckerberg in a July post on his Truth Social platform.
