Meta has donated $1 million to Donald Trump's inaugural fund in the latest sign CEO Mark Zuckerberg is trying to repair his relationship with the president-elect.
The donation was first reported by The Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, and the parent company of Facebook and Instagram confirmed the news to multiple outlets.
The contribution comes after Zuckerberg and his advisers visited Trump last month at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, the Journal said.
Senior Meta policy executives Joel Kaplan and Kevin Martin and GOP strategist Brian Baker joined incoming White House chief of staff Susie Wiles for two days of discussions that centered on relationship-building. Zuckerberg then met Trump for dinner and gifted the president-elect a pair of Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses.
Before the dinner, Meta's team told Trump's people about its plans to donate to the inaugural fund.
Public records show that neither Zuckerberg nor Meta donated to Trump's inaugural fund in 2017 or to President Joe Biden's fund in 2021.
Meta's actions follow an election that resulted in Trump being returned to the White House and Republicans gaining control of both houses of Congress.
Big Tech companies have been the target of Republican lawmakers, who have accused social media platforms of censoring conservative content.
Trump and Zuckerberg also have had a bumpy relationship, as has the CEO with Trump adviser Elon Musk.
In the run-up to November's election, Trump threatened to punish Zuckerberg if he tried to influence the election against him.
Zuckerberg and Trump spoke and met during the latter's first administration, though the CEO criticized the then-president's executive orders on immigration.
Following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol, Facebook suspended Trump from posting, as did several other social-media platforms. The company restored his account in early 2023, but with certain "guardrails," and lifted the restrictions in July.
Zuckerberg did praise Trump's reaction to the July 13 assassination attempt as "one of the most badass things I've ever seen in my life," among his recent attempts to appeal to conservative users.
Trump has named Brendan Carr, a Big Tech critic, to head the Federal Communications Commission, and nominated Andrew Ferguson to be commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission, which has antitrust oversight of Meta.
Reuters contributed to this story
Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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