Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has contributed $1 million (£786,000) to the inauguration fund for President-elect Donald Trump, marking a significant gesture toward rebuilding relations between the tech giant and the incoming administration.
The company’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, reportedly dined with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in November, following a strained history between the two.
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Trump had previously criticized Facebook, calling it “anti-Trump” in 2017, while relations worsened in 2021 when Facebook and Instagram suspended Trump’s accounts after the January 6 Capitol riots.
Meta confirmed the donation to several media outlets, including CBS and the Wall Street Journal, on Wednesday.
The company did not make similar contributions to President Joe Biden’s inaugural fund in 2020 or Trump’s inaugural fund in 2016.
Inauguration funds are used to cover the costs of events and activities during a presidential transition, but critics often view such donations as attempts to curry favor with the new administration.
Trump, who will be sworn in as the 47th president of the United States on January 20, has historically had a contentious relationship with Zuckerberg and Meta.
The former president has publicly criticized Facebook as an “enemy of the people” and accused the platform of unfairly benefiting from potential TikTok bans.
Zuckerberg has also faced scrutiny for his company’s actions during the pandemic, admitting in a letter to Republican lawmakers that Meta had succumbed to pressure from the Biden administration to censor certain content on its platforms.
Despite past tensions, there have been signs of reconciliation. Trump acknowledged Zuckerberg’s efforts to “stay out of the election” during a podcast appearance in October and expressed gratitude for a personal phone call after surviving an assassination attempt.
While Zuckerberg’s relationship with Trump appears to be improving, he remains less close to the president-elect than fellow tech magnate Elon Musk. Musk, the CEO of Tesla and X, has been a vocal supporter of Trump, earning him the nickname “First Buddy” and an appointment to lead the newly created Department of Government Efficiency.
Although a much-anticipated cage fight between Musk and Zuckerberg now seems unlikely, the dynamics between the tech titans and the incoming administration continue to evolve.