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Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has donated $1 million to President Donald Trump’s inaugural fund.
The change from the company’s past with Trump, which included banning his accounts following Jan. 6, 2021, was reported by the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.
“Zuckerberg’s efforts to strengthen ties—which began years earlier—included a November dinner with Trump on the patio of his private Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla., that focused on general relationship-building,” WSJ wrote.
“The dinner capped a two-day flurry of meetings for Zuckerberg advisers at Mar-a-Lago. Senior Meta policy executives Joel Kaplan and Kevin Martin and Republican strategist Brian Baker met with incoming White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, according to people familiar with the matter,” it added.
The decision changes Meta’s past policies with other presidents as well. According to Just the News, Meta did not donate to President Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021 or to Trump’s inauguration in 2017.
In September, RSBN reported that Trump said Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told him there is “no way” he could support a Democrat in the 2024 election. Trump shared the comments in an interview published by New York Magazine.
“Mark Zuckerberg called up and said, ‘I’ve never supported a Republican before, but there’s no way I can vote for a Democrat in this election.’ He’s a guy that, his parents, everybody was always Democrat,” Trump said.
“He said, ‘I will never vote for the people running against you after watching what you did.’ So I mean, people really appreciated it. I don’t — I think it was very natural what I did. I think it was natural,” he added.
The outlet added that after reaching out to Meta, a spokesperson responded, “As Mark has said publicly, he’s not endorsing anybody in this race and has not communicated to anybody how he intends to vote.”
Zuckerberg recently spoke positively of the 45th president following the assassination attempt against him in July.
“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,” he told Bloomberg in July.