Meta Plat\u00adforms has donated $1 mil\u00adlion to pres\u00adid\u00adent-elect Don\u00adald Trump\u2019s inaug\u00adural fund, the latest step by CEO Mark Zuck\u00ader\u00adberg to bol\u00adster his once-fraught rela\u00adtion\u00adship with the incom\u00ading pres\u00adid\u00adent. The dona\u00adtion, con\u00adfirmed by the com\u00adpany, is a depar\u00adture from past prac\u00adtice by Zuck\u00ader\u00adberg and his com\u00adpany, and comes after an elec\u00adtion cam\u00adpaign in which Trump threatened to pun\u00adish the tech tycoon if he tried to influ\u00adence the elec\u00adtion against him. The con\u00adtri\u00adbu\u00adtion and efforts to court the incom\u00ading admin\u00adis\u00adtra\u00adtion are emblem\u00adatic of the bal\u00adan\u00adcing act for tech\u00adno\u00adlogy CEOs whose com\u00adpan\u00adies have often been the tar\u00adget of ire from Trump and other Repub\u00adlic\u00adans and whose work\u00adforces tend to lean strongly to the left. Now, with Repub\u00adlic\u00adans set to take con\u00adtrol of the White House and both houses of Con\u00adgress and call\u00ading for new reg\u00adu\u00adla\u00adtion of tech, some exec\u00adut\u00adives are adopt\u00ading a new pos\u00adture toward Trump. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, long a foe of the pres\u00adid\u00aden\u00adt-elect, con\u00adgrat\u00adu\u00adlated Trump on X after the elec\u00adtion for \u201can extraordin\u00adary polit\u00adical comeback and decis\u00adive vic\u00adtory,\u201d and said this month that he\u2019s \u201cactu\u00adally very optim\u00adistic this time around.\u201d Speak\u00ading at a New York Times con\u00adfer\u00adence, he said: \u201cWhat I\u2019ve seen so far is that he is calmer than he was the first time and more con\u00adfid\u00adent, more settled.\u201d Zuck\u00ader\u00adberg\u2019s efforts to strengthen ties \u2014 which began years earlier \u2014included a Novem\u00adber din\u00adner with Trump on the patio of his private Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach that focused on gen\u00aderal rela\u00adtion\u00adship-build\u00ading. The din\u00adner capped a two-day flurry of meet\u00adings for Zuck\u00ader\u00adberg advisers at Mar-a-Lago. Senior Meta policy exec\u00adut\u00adives Joel Kaplan and Kevin Mar\u00adtin and Repub\u00adlican strategist Brian Baker met with incom\u00ading White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, accord\u00ading to people famil\u00adiar with the mat\u00adter. Zuck\u00ader\u00adberg and his advisers met with Senator Marco Rubio, Trump\u2019s nom\u00adinee for sec\u00adret\u00adary of state, as well as with three senior incom\u00ading White House advisers: Stephen Miller, Vince Haley and James Blair. Before the din\u00adner, Zuck\u00ader\u00adberg did a private demon\u00adstra\u00adtion for Trump of Meta\u2019s Ray\u00adBan smart glasses, which he gave as a present to the pres\u00adid\u00adent-elect, the people famil\u00adiar with the dis\u00adcus\u00adsions said. Zuck\u00ader\u00adberg\u2019s team told the inaug\u00adural fund before the din\u00adner that Meta planned to donate, one of the people said. Fed\u00aderal cam\u00adpaign-fin\u00adance reports show Zuck\u00ader\u00adberg has sup\u00adpor\u00adted con\u00adgres\u00adsional can\u00addid\u00adates in both parties over the years and has largely stayed out of pres\u00adid\u00aden\u00adtial races. Neither Zuck\u00ader\u00adberg nor Meta donated to Trump\u2019s inaug\u00adural fund in 2017 or to Pres\u00adid\u00adent Biden\u2019s fund in 2021, accord\u00ading to pub\u00adlic records. Both of those funds drew $1m dona\u00adtions from fewer than a dozen major cor\u00adpor\u00ada\u00adtions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Meta Plat\u00adforms has donated $1 mil\u00adlion to pres\u00adid\u00adent-elect Don\u00adald Trump\u2019s inaug\u00adural fund, the latest step by CEO Mark Zuck\u00ader\u00adberg to bol\u00adster his once-fraught rela\u00adtion\u00adship with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21626,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}