Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg is pulling off a lobbying-public relations combo move by gifting President-elect Donald Trump’s inaugural fund $1 million, according to the Wall Street Journal. The money came from Meta, to be clear, but Zuckerberg sweetened the gift further — while doing great marketing — by sending Trump a pair of Meta’s smart glasses, too.
It’s a paltry amount compared to the nearly $270 million that Big Tech competitor Elon Musk donated to the America PAC fund, which campaigned for Trump, but it’s still a lot of money.
Trump has in the past been critical of Zuckerberg and Meta, calling the executive an “enemy of the people,” accusing Meta of unfairly censoring conservative voices during the 2020 election, and threatening to punish him.
Zuckerberg used to be vocal in his displeasure with Trump’s policies, as well. He has openly criticized Trump’s executive orders around immigration. But that was 2017, and this is 2024.
Meta’s donation comes as other tech executives attempt to play nice with the incoming Republican party. Amazon co-founder Jeff Bezos, who has also borne Trump’s ire, blocked his newspaper, The Washington Post, from endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential bid. He even congratulated Trump on X for his “decisive victory” in the U.S. elections.
