POLITICO broke the story just before 9:00 p.m. ET on Wednesday:
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg made the trek to Mar-a-Lago on Wednesday, where he met with President-elect Donald Trump and members of his soon-to-be second administration.
Zuckerberg, who is 40 and worth at least $200 billion, and his social media platforms (including Facebook), are considered left of center. As the Associated Press reported in 2021, “Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg donated $400 million to help fund election offices as they scrambled to deal with the coronavirus pandemic late last summer [2020]”.
This outsized contribution was widely considered to be an investment in the election of Joe Biden and Democrats in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
As the AP also noted, “Conservatives have long accused the tech mogul’s social media platform of censoring right-wing voices as part of its campaign against misinformation.”
Prior to the 2024 election, however, Zuckerberg appeared to have a change of heart.
According to the Independent, via AOL, on July 21, 2024, Zuckerberg “said he doesn’t plan on playing a major role in the 2024 election, in an interview with Bloomberg.”
He noted that he has “done some stuff personally in the past,” adding that “I’m not planning on doing that this time, and that includes not endorsing either of the candidates.”
A person with direct knowledge of the Trump-Zuckerberg meeting, one of Trump’s closest aides Stephen Miller, appeared live on FOX News Wednesday evening on the Ingraham Angle, guest hosted by Brian Kilmeade.
Miller confirmed the Zuckerberg-Trump meeting and added details and his interpretation of the encounter.
Video of the Miller interview can be viewed here.
BRIAN KILMEADE, FOX News host: Stephen, real quick. POLITICO is reporting that Mark Zuckerberg was at Mar-a-Lago today meeting with President Trump. Can you confirm that?
STEPHEN MILLER: Yes, that’s correct. And Mark Zuckerberg has been very clear about his desire to be a supporter of and a participant in this change that we’re seeing in America and all around the world with this reform movement that Donald Trump is leading. Mark Zuckerberg, like so many business leaders, understands that President Trump is an agent of change, an agent of prosperity. And so business leaders, CEOs everywhere, they want to be an element – a supporter, a booster of making our economy prosperous, delivering for American workers, and making sure that America is the most powerful, wealthiest, freest nation on the face of the earth.
So we will see what comes of that, and Mark, obviously, he has his own interests and he has his own company and agenda. But he has made clear that he wants to support the national renewal of America under President Trump’s leadership.
KILMEADE: Stephen, thanks for confirming. I appreciate it.